The Importance of Drum Heroes

[Randy walker]

Good question Peter.....Not sure of the answer but can see where Chick was coming from being a drummer himself.

[Randy walker]

The Miles Davis documentary on DVD is awesome.

[ptrack]

I remeber reading somewhere that Elvin's style of swing was influenced by his drum corps experience......It makes alot of sense.... Listening to Elvin's swing during my long walks has reinforced what he said regarding swing. Elvin's grooves are march - like in a strong way. The 2 feel is very prevalant..Especially when he swings ballads with the sticks as opposed to the brushes....
I remeber he said something about JP Sousa being an influence of his in the his drum corp days....


That's my hypothesis....
Please feel free to elaborate..

[Clintuplet]

This is a most appropriate category to write this: Drum Heroes. One was certainly witnessed today at the Birmingham PAS Day of Percussion. His name: Peter Erskine. What a clinic...very informative with all of the right information you'd like to hear. Afterward I had the pleasure of meeting him and having a chuckle concerning the shirt comments made on the 'Peter Erskine' thread. I can attest to the fact that Peter wore a very elegant, form fitting black shirt purchased in Bangkok if I'm not mistaken. Houghton's shirt was...well, he may post on here sometime so I'll leave the comments to myself. [img]biggrin.gif[/img] Once again Peter, thanks for the fantastic clinic and the pleasure of meeting you.

Clint Hopkins

[Dazzler]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor=""><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not sure of the answer but can see where Chick was coming from being a drummer himself. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Randy, am right in thinking that it was Chick playing drums with Michael Brecker on 'Confirmation' at the end of The Three Quartets album?

[FlamTriplet]

Elvin's influences, that is a tough one. I can only guess. Perhaps the music of Duke Ellington, Chick Webb. Roy Haynes comes to mind. I imagine he listened to many international records, African drum masters etc... He is very polyrythmic, reminds me of the way time is broken up in a Ghana style. His style seems very African, so that would be my major guess. [img]eek.gif[/img]

[drum4fun]

Speaking of Elvin, he played at the Jazz Bakery tonight and will be playing there on Sunday. If you are in the Los Angeles area and have some free time tomorrow, I recommend you see him play. I went to both of his shows tonight and he was in fine form. After the two shows, I had the chance to meet him for a few minutes. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. My music teacher was a student of his 30 years ago. My music teacher always told me that along with being an amazing drummer, Elvin Jones is one of the best/kindest people he has ever met. After meeting Elvin tonight, I can see why my music teacher has so much admiration, love, and respect for Elvin.

[five eight]

Concerning Elvin’s influences I suggest exploring the obvious. The Jones family had more than it’s share of musical talent and unleashed three great jazzmen into the world. Elvin’s brothers were Hank Jones (piano) and Thad (trumpet). No doubt the jam sessions in that household were loose and uninhibited, in some small way accounting for Elvin’s approach to post-bop drumming. Elvin says the band instructor at his school, Fred Weist, was quite good, but most kids in Pontiac were too impoverished to afford private drum lessons. This makes me think that Elvin probably didn’t have access to a lot of world music as a youngster either (or anything.) Before he joined Trane at age 33 he worked with Billy Mitchell, Mingus, Donald Byrd, and Bud Powell. The Village Vanguard record with Sonny Rollins in 1957 sounds tame compared to early Trane recordings like My Favorite Things (’60) and Coltrane’s own Village Vanguard dates (’61). By late ’62 Jones was really coming into his own on the European Tour. About this time the Quartet exchewed 45 minute sets and began playing continuously in clubs. One eyewitness clocked a Trane and Elvin duet at an hour and forty five minutes. An insider of the band says the saxophonist would often do that to sober up his drummer but those free-flights into the unknown had to unfetter the imagination and possibly channel the music of the spheres. Imagine duking it out with a genius non-stop for two hours a night for years on end. Coltrane had to be the forge that tempered the fire and steel in Elvin’s playing. And the group worked! Unlike Miles’s men of leisure, the Coltrane quartet was always on the road. As the years went by Jones’s drumming developed into something indistinguishable from the long-gone Sonny Rollins days. And Elvin was still nowhere close to the wildman he was on Sun Ship (’65) during the height of Trane’s LSD experimentation.

Billy Ward tells the great story of being in Manny’s and forced to choose between a lesson with Tony or one with Elvin. Billy chose Elvin because he understood where Tony was coming from. He had no idea where Jones was from. My best guess is the Planet Coltrane. Rarified air indeed, gentlemen. Has anyone ever seen a picture of Elvin when he wasn’t smiling?

[Randy walker]

I don't have that cd but it's very possible. In the Time Warp video he talks abit about being a drummer and the way he writes music and loves to see how the drummer is going move around his percussive playing on the piano. Or words to that idea.

[FlamTriplet]

I forgot about his family. I guess I'll wait to see what Peter says.