Элвин Джонс: Жизнь и творчество джазового барабанщика

American jazz drummer (1927–2004)

Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004) was an American jazz drummer of the post bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane's quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such albums as My Favorite Things, A Love Supreme, Ascension and Live at Birdland. After 1966, Jones led his own trio, and later larger groups under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank and Thad were also celebrated jazz musicians with whom he occasionally recorded. In his The History of Jazz, jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia calls Jones "one of the most influential drummers in the history of jazz". He was also ranked at Number 23 on Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Drummers of All Time".

Elvin Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan, His elder brothers were pianist Hank Jones and trumpeter Thad Jones, both highly regarded musicians. By age two, he said, drums held a special fascination for him. He would watch the circus parades go past his home as a child, and was particularly excited by the marching band drummers. Following this early passion, Elvin joined his high school's black marching band, where he developed his foundation in rudiments.

Jones served in the United States Army from 1946 to 1949.

Jones began his professional career in 1949 with a short lived gig in a club on Detroit's Grand River Street. During the late 1950s, Jones was a member of the Sonny Rollins trio

In 1960, he began playing with John Coltrane. By 1962, he had become an integral member of the classic John Coltrane Quartet along with bassist Jimmy Garrison and pianist McCoy Tyner. Both Sonny Fortune and Ravi Coltrane, John Coltrane's son, played saxophone with the Jazz Machine in the early 1990s, appearing together with Jones on In Europe on Enja Records in 1991. His final recording as a band leader, The Truth: Heard Live at the Blue Note, recorded in 1999 and issued in 2004, featured an enlarged version of his Jazz Machine—Antoine Roney (sax), Robin Eubanks (trombonist), Darren Barrett (trumpet), Carlos McKinney (piano), Gene Perla (bass), and guest saxophonist Michael Brecker. In 1990 and 1992, the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine partnered with Wynton Marsalis, performing at The Bottom Line in New York. Among his last recordings was accompanying his brother, pianist Hank Jones, and bassist Richard Davis on an album titled Autumn Leaves under the name The Great Jazz Trio. Other musicians who made significant contributions to Jones's music during this period were baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams, tenor saxophonists George Coleman and Frank Foster, trumpeter Lee Morgan, bassist Gene Perla, keyboardist Jan Hammer and jazz–world music group Oregon. In 1969, Jones played drums for beat poet Allen Ginsberg's 1970 LP Songs of Innocence and Experience, a musical adaptation of William Blake's poetry collection of the same name. He appeared as the villain Job Cain in the 1971 musical Western film Zachariah, in which he performed a drum solo after winning a saloon gunfight.

Elvin Jones died of heart failure in Englewood, New Jersey, on May 18, 2004. He was survived by his first wife Shirley, children: Elvin Nathan Jones, Rose Marie Jones, and Alvin Queen, and his second wife Keiko Okuya Jones.

Jones's sense of timing, polyrhythms, dynamics, timbre, and legato phrasing helped bring the drumset to the foreground. In a 1970 profile published in Life Magazine, Albert Goldman dubbed Jones "the world's greatest rhythm drummer", and his free flowing style was a major influence on many leading drummers, including Christian Vander (Magma), Mitch Mitchell (whom Jimi Hendrix called "my Elvin Jones"), Ginger Baker, Bill Bruford, John Densmore (The Doors) and Janet Weiss (Sleater Kinney).