- 759Recommend It!
- 10,188views
Artist Profiles
Happy Birthday Elvin Jones!
Florence Wetzel
Florence is the co-author of Perry Robinson: The Traveler.
Legendary drummer Elvin Jones is turning 75 on September 9th, and to celebrate the occasion Jones is performing at the Blue Note for two weeks. The celebration kicks off on Jones' birthday, and that night Jones' group, the Jazz Machine, will perform with special guest Wynton Marsalis.
Jones' relationship with Marsalis goes back many years. "Wynton's a good friend. I first saw him and his brother Branford when they were playing with Art Blakey at a jazz festival in Florida. Later I got a chance to meet them, and so we became connected in that way. Then they had their own group together, and that group broke up I think because Branford got the gig on Jay Leno’s show. Wynton came down to talk to me about that and I said, 'It's an opportunity for him, be happy for him. And by the way, why don't you come and play with me?'
"And we did, we went on several tours in Japan and Europe. Wynton is the only brass player I know that mastered his horn enough to play the Love Supreme suite written by John Coltrane. He played all four movements, and we presented that in concert form in Japan. We've been very close since then. He's just a wonderful guy, very bright, and a beautiful musician."
The first week at the Blue Note will feature the current incarnation of the Jazz Machine: saxophonist Pat LaBarbera, saxophonist Mark Sims, trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, pianist Anthony Wonsey, and bassist Gerald Cannon. Jones' Jazz Machine has been playing for over a decade, and with many different performers including Cecil McBee, Sonny Fortune, Gene Perla, Joshua Redman, David Liebman, Michael Brecker, and Robin Eubanks. "The name itself came from my wife Keiko. She suggested it because I was always playing these engagements where the billboard would say 'The Elvin Jones Quartet', and sometimes we wouldn't even have four people! So we said 'The Jazz Machine' so everybody would understand. It's impersonal to a certain degree, but it's also a way of identifying the group, a business identity you could say.
"The group has changed over the years. First it was just a trio with a pianist and a bass, then one night when we were playing in New York Steve Grossman came down. He was going to Julliard, so he came down and wanted to sit in, and I said, 'Sure, come on up and play!' He was just learning how to play the soprano saxophone and copying some of John Coltrane's riffs, so he played that all night, over and over again. That was a lot of fun. That's what it's really all about, you know, you have to enjoy it, and I was fortunate enough to have that job at that particular club. Nobody ever came in there, but we played every night, so it was a good way to practice! "The group just moved on from there. Steve started playing with us regularly, and David Liebman started playing with us, Gene Perla was playing with us, and things developed in that way. I think a good word is 'growth', because the group grows."
The second week at the Blue Note is a tribute to John Coltrane with the Elvin Jones Quintet. The Quintet consists of trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, pianist Carlos McKinney, bassist Reginald Veal, and Coltrane's son Ravi on saxophone. Jones of course was part of Coltrane's legendary quartet during the early and mid-’60s, and he looks back on that time fondly. "It was a wonderful experience. For six years I had probably the happiest time in my life up to that point. I learned a lot working with him: I learned how to relax, and how to support and listen to what he was doing. It's very essential to hear what another person is doing, because if you can't hear it, you can't support it; you don't really understand what it is. So I learned how to listen. I could hear everything he did, almost sometimes anticipate what he was going to do. We got so close it was almost telepathic. And playing with him certainly made me more aware of the spirituality that's inside all of us."
Jones also has a close relationship with Ravi Coltrane. "I knew Ravi when he was born, but I didn't see him again until he was 26, when he was a man. He wanted to play, but he had this idea that people catered to him because his father was John Coltrane. I said, 'That's got nothing to do with it! That's maybe a little bit of it, but when you play that's you playing that horn, that isn't your father! There's only two hands on that horn.' So Ravi came out of it, and he blossomed after that. He worked with us for four years, and he got very comfortable with himself. We talked about his dad a lot because Ravi never really knew his father; he was just a baby when John died. So he questioned me about him, what we did and what we talked about. I was sort of like a surrogate father to Ravi."
