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Artist Profiles
Happy Birthday Elvin Jones!
Florence Wetzel
Florence is the co-author of Perry Robinson: The Traveler.The Blue Note gigs are also a celebration of Jones' famous energy and stamina, which are still going strong at age 75. Jones credits his wife Keiko with keeping him healthy. "If it hadn't been for her, I would have been dead a long time ago. I didn't take care of myself, and I didn't eat properly. When we got married [36 years ago] she would insist, 'Sit down, eat your dinner, eat your breakfast...' I was regulated in a way; I would go to bed and go to sleep instead of carousing around all night long. She saved my life.” He still travels with his groups all over the world and it's an experience he enjoys, particularly the closeness that develops between band members.
"When you're out traveling with a group, that's your family in a sense, and if you don't love each other somebody's going to have problems or get hurt. When you're traveling you help each other carry the bags, you see if everybody's eaten breakfast, if they feel okay or need any money or whatever. You learn how to protect each other. It's the same when you're playing, when you play you have to protect each other. I know if a guy's tired or something happens to his horn, and then you step in and compensate for him. It's like that."
When not on the road, Jones likes to spend time reading. His favorites are Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and westerns. He also likes poetry, particularly Paul Laurence Dunbar and T.S. Eliot. And of course he listens to music, but if you ask him what's currently on his turntable he gives the surprising answer, "I like Sam Cooke and his song 'Cupid'. That's just a very cute song, I love that. Sam Cooke has a way of delivering his music that I find very unique." The quality that Jones seeks most in music is honesty. "Music demands honesty if it's going to have any effect or any meaning or feeling to it. That kind of music comes because of the honesty of the musician that's playing the composition. The effort to be honest brings out spirituality, and it brings out all the talent that one has and probably didn't even know existed within oneself, but it's there, nevertheless. You have to just be honest and let it come out, and then your mind isn't clouded with unnecessary things; you don't have to go around lying, you can just tell the truth. That's what it's all about."
Jones is looking forward to his birthday and his upcoming gigs at the Blue Note. "We're going to be at the Blue Note for two wonderful weeks, and I've got a lot of wonderful people who're going to come in and celebrate with us. They'll come up and we'll play together and just have a good time! It's a great way to express yourself, and to celebrate the life that you've had and the future that you're contemplating."
Photo Credit
Jimmy Katz
