RIP Elvin Jones

[zulchzulu]

I had seen Elvin many times over the years and he would play his heart out and would have the biggest smile on his face when he'd get the band going. I'm glad I saw him last January at Yoshi's in Oakland. Somehow, I knew it was my final time I'd have the blessing to see him perform.

Put on Love Supreme and meditate to this great man.


Snip:

"Elvin Jones, 76, the drummer who lit the rhythmic fire under the transcendental jazz of saxophonist John Coltrane, died May 18 at a hospital in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. He had a heart ailment.

In his five years with Coltrane's quartet in the 1960s, Mr. Jones set the standard for modern jazz drumming, incorporating the polyrhythmic patterns of African drumming into his incendiary, almost overwhelming technique. McCoy Tyner, the group's pianist, called the quartet "four pistons in an engine." By that analogy, Mr. Jones was its drive train.

With Coltrane, he performed on some of the most important, and influential, albums in jazz history, including "My Favorite Things," "John Coltrane Live at Birdland" and "Love Supreme." He was, according to Whitney Balliett, jazz critic of the New Yorker, "the greatest of all modern drummers."

Mr. Jones exerted a towering influence over jazz for decades, performing on hundreds of albums and touring all over the world. He continued to perform until weeks before his death. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44023-2004May20?language=printer

[tigereye]

1. great picture

wish the jazz greats could all live forever!