Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones (born September 9, 1927 in Pontiac , Michigan , † May 18, 2004 in Englewood , New Jersey) was an American jazz musician and band leader who became known as the drummer of the John Coltrane Quartet.
Live and act
The African American Jones was born the youngest of ten children into a family of musicians. He got access to jazz music through his brothers Thad Jones , the trumpeter and composer who died in 1986 , and the renowned pianist Hank Jones .
Jones began his career in Detroit in 1955 . After an application to the Benny Goodman Orchestra in New York was rejected , he stayed loyal to the city and played with jazz greats such as Bud Powell , Miles Davis , Sonny Rollins , Larry Young , Donald Byrd , Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker , among others . In 1960, Jones was finally hired by Coltrane for his "classic" John Coltrane Quartet , of which he was a member until 1965. During this time he was instrumental in the creation of some of the most famous jazz albums, above all John Coltrane's A Love Supreme .
In the idiosyncratic western film Zachariah from 1971, Elvin Jones took on the role of the villain Job Cain. After winning a revolver duel in a saloon, he plays a differentiated drum solo.
After leaving Coltrane's quartet, Jones played in Duke Ellington's orchestra for a very short time and then led his own band, which became known in the early 1990s as the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine (with Stefano Di Battista , Willie Pickens , Frank Catalano and Ravi, among others Coltrane ). In 1990 he worked with McCoy Tyner on David Murray's album Special Quartet .
In 2003 he received the Jazz Masters Fellowship from the state NEA Foundation .
Elvin Jones died of a heart attack at the age of 76 after a long and serious illness .
meaning
Elvin Jones goes down as a stylist in the history of jazz drumming; with the drummers Tony Williams and Paul Motian he is one of the essential innovators of jazz drumming in modern jazz and had a great influence on the following generations of drummers.
The most diverse facets merge in his style. He played with an irrepressible energy, with a rough but equally soft tone, and was nevertheless a highly sensitive companion. What is to be emphasized is his peculiarity of varying and rephrasing the traditional swing pattern with his right hand on the ride symbol. Elvin Jones played a very wide, casual and airy beat , to which he underlayed several layers of complex, mainly triplet- based polyrhythms on the snare drum, bass drum and hihat . His solos are complex and condensed and are based on an unusual phrase formation with very organic tension condensation and resolution. His playing technique also set new standards in terms of independence between hands and feet.
In 2016, Rolling Stone listed Jones 23rd of the 100 best drummers of all time .
Discography (selection)
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Filmography
- 1971: Zachariah ( “The first electric Western” ), directed by George Englund , USA.
Web links
- Elvin Jones at Discogs (English)
- Elvin Jones at Allmusic (English)
- Elvin Jones on the NEA Foundation website
- Official website
- detailed discography on Jazzdisco.org
- Elvin Jones at drummerworld.com
- Elvin Jones - The Detroit Years at oakland.edu (PDF file; 132 kB)
Individual evidence
- ^ Obituary in The New York Times
- ↑ Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .
- ^ A Different Drummer: Elvin Jones
- ↑ 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Rolling Stone , March 31, 2016, accessed August 6, 2017 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Jones, Elvin |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jones, Elvin Ray (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz musician and band leader |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 9, 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pontiac , Michigan |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 18, 2004 |
| Place of death | Englewood , New Jersey |