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Talking about Elvin
‘Emperor Jones’ and his legacy
BY JON GARELICK


Headlines can never say it all; the New York Times’ read, inevitably: "Elvin Jones, Jazz Drummer with Coltrane, Dies at 76." But Elvin, who played in Coltrane’s bands from 1960 to 1966 and was part of the "classic" Coltrane quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison, left a legacy that goes far beyond his work with that leader. In many respects, he was an equal partner in creating a new sound with Coltrane. It’s doubtful Coltrane could have produced masterworks like A Love Supreme without his continual dialogue with Elvin as inspiration. And as the Times obituary and the many other articles written about Elvin through the years point out, his was the next step in jazz rhythm, building on the polyrhythmic concepts developed in the bebop years by the likes of Max Roach and Kenny Clarke. His rhythm was the precursor of the "free-jazz" percussion that followed. But Elvin’s musicality, and his personality, transcended his instrument. You can pretty much figure that Roach was talking about more than drums when he coined the appellation "Emperor Jones" for his friend.

Of course, the drums are where his story begins. Jones’s time brought jazz drumming to the edge of total freedom while still sustaining a strong pulse. "He really played the forms of standards and blues," says drummer and bandleader George Schuller, one of several musicians I spoke with after Elvin’s death on May 18. "If he’d trade eights and twelves, he’d come back maybe a little bit before or after the ‘one,’ but you knew after he came back in that that was the one. That’s what made him so amazing: even though he stretched the forms a little bit, you knew where the ‘one’ was."

When Jones was working with a great bass player like, say, Garrison or Cecil McBee, he was unstoppable. I remember a show at the Regattabar in 1990, with McBee holding the center, where every facet of the beat became accessible to Elvin. (Dave Liebman, who played saxophone with Elvin from 1971 to 1973, says he was able to get over his early sense of intimidation when he decided that Elvin "was mostly listening to the bass player.") His sound was big, but absolutely lucid, which is partly what made him accessible to such a broad audience. What’s more, his sense of dynamics was remarkable, as was his command of color — his use of brushes and mallets, the clarity of his cymbals. With all that volume, his sound remained transparent, from the smash of his cymbals to the ring of his snare drum.

"So many people think of Elvin as the power and huge sound," says Bob Gullotti, drummer with the Fringe. "But a lot of times when he would do that, the next thing he would play would just be whispered. He had such a dynamic range, and he used all the dynamics in one phrase." "Elvin was a complete musician as far as melody, harmony, and rhythm," Joe Lovano says. "He played with a complete sense of orchestration, amazing feeling, and interaction."

Bebop drumming moved timekeeping from the heavy 4/4 of the bass drum to the lighter, more open, and ultimately more driving sound of those relentless dotted rhythms on the hi-hat. Jones established the time in a steady flow that covered his entire kit. In concert, his upper body was in constant motion, his arms and sticks sweeping across the drum heads while his feet played corresponding patterns on the kick drum and hi-hat. As he laid down the beat, he continually commented on it, offered variations, those "layers" of supporting rhythm that his fellow musicians talk about.

"You felt all tempos in every tempo," Lovano says. "All the octaves of time, let’s say. No matter what tempo you were in, you felt the beautiful perspectives that are possible."

Those layers of rhythm also account in part for the paradoxical effects Jones could create. Musicians use words like "propulsive" and "intense" to describe his sound, but also "relaxed" and "laid back," and they speak of his "wide" conception of the beat.

"The main challenge in playing with Elvin is learning how to play behind the beat," Liebman explains. "When you’re playing the saxophone or a wind instrument, there’s a natural tendency to want to push ahead with the air stream. With Elvin, you had to learn how to lay back. So when I played with him for those two years, it took me about six months to learn how to not rush. But I finally did get it a little bit, and it’s affected my playing for the rest of my life."

Liebman’s extensive liner notes to the recent Complete Blue Note Elvin Jones Sessions (Mosaic) offer an extraordinary analysis of Jones’s style. He’s been a star saxophone soloist and bandleader since his years with Elvin and Miles Davis in the ’70s, but among drummers, he’s respected as a peer ("He’s a monster," says Bob Gullotti). On the Mosaic set (which covers his own tenure with the band, including the historic Live at the Lighthouse sessions), Liebman critiques Elvin’s touch, tunings (yes, drummers do tune, at least the good ones), and rhythmic concept. But even to him, some elements of Jones’s style remain elusive, and purely personal: "Even when trading bars with the other musicians as in fours, eights, or twelves, the way he stretches the beat is unimaginable and can be hard to decipher, but it always seems to feel great."

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Issue Date: June 4 - 10, 2004
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