Groove o’ the day: Elvin Jones – Zoltan

Wow, we’ve done a lot on Elvin Jones. And why not— everyone loves his playing, and wants to play like him at some point. I should put all of this into a single volume print book, or something. Anyway, here’s a Latin groove of his, from a very famous track: Zoltan, from Larry Young’s Blue Note album Unity. That’s an essential album for any drummer.

He plays it with a lot of variation, so I wrote out several versions. These all happen within the first A section:

Play the snare drum notes as rim clicks— I should have written those with the traditional xs, but I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and don’t feel like correcting it right now. The floor tom notes aren’t played real strongly— especially not the second one. Accent the & of 4 of the first measure, and to a lesser degree the & of 2.

Here’s the track. The tune has an intro played as a march, Latin A sections, and a swing bridge:

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