This is the first in a series of thumbnail introductions to some important players. Like everything on the blog, this is my personal perspective— there’s no pretense that these are complete historical sketches, or a […]
Category: Elvin Jones
New e-book: 5 Elvin Jones Transcriptions
Here’s what I’ve been doing all weekend instead of writing blog posts: writing a new e-book of some transcriptions previously available on the blog, all re-proofed and edited: Summertime (drum solo), Lonnie’s Lament, Big Nick […]
Page o’ coordination: Elvin’s Afro-waltz – starting off the 1
Hearkening back to one of the very first pages o’…, in which we worked on developing an Elvin Jones-style waltz, the way he played it on John Coltrane’s Your Lady. It’s an interesting groove, with […]
Zachariah blow by blow
There’s a famous-among-drummers scene from the early 70s film Zachariah— a “psychedelic” cowboy movie with a big musical component. It features a purported drum solo by Elvin Jones, which gets shared around the internet as […]
Daily best music in the world: India
I’ve listened to this so many times it’s like classical music; just realized I haven’t listened to it in several years:
Groove o’ the day: Elvin Jones – Rose Marie
Something from the record I’ve been running in my car all week: The Peacocks, by Stan Getz and Jimmy Rowles. The tune is Rose Marie, a song from the 20s which was a country hit […]
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 […]
GOTD & POC: Elvin Jones — That 5/4 Bag
First-ever combined Groove o’ the Day and Page o’ Coordination. We’re completely off the chain. From Elvin Jones’s second album as leader, Dear John C., here is the major groove for That 5/4 Bag, with […]
Assembling a basic Elvin Jones-style waltz
Here’s a page of elements for putting together a basic Elvin Jones-style jazz waltz— I hate to treat his playing so reductively, but what are we supposed to do? It’s a thing, it’s sometimes asked […]
Mike Clark on Elvin, Tony
I stumbled across these interviews with Mike Clark, talking about all the stuff players care about about Elvin Jones and Tony Williams: Part 1 on Elvin: Here’s part 2: The interviews on Tony Williams are […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones — Lonnie’s Lament
I’ve transcribed Elvin Jones’s playing during McCoy Tyner’s solo, on Lonnie’s Lament, which you will have just listened to on the John Coltrane album Crescent. It’s medium tempo, with a subdued vibe for much of […]
“How can I understand Elvin Jones?”
This is a question that came up on the Drummerworld forum— Elvin Jones’s playing is quite advanced in a way that inexperienced listeners may be slow to figure out, and that defies explanation. The way […]