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Tribal Elders
Elvin Jones
Epilogue
The Long Goodbye
By Chip Stern
The
French have a phrase for it.
The
bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right.
To
say goodbye is to die a little.
Raymond Chandler
Relating to human beings
involves basic truths, both positive and negative.
They have never changed
and never will change. That’s why I read poetry.
It’s universal. I like human beings. That’s why I play music
Elvin Jones
Soul
Soul. It’s
undeniable, yet indefinable. I suppose,
when all is said and done, soul is a direct connection to the spirit. Least ways, that’s what I believe.
I was ruminating about the
nature of soul all the way home from Elvin Jones’ wake last spring at the Frank
Campbell Funeral Home on Manhattan’s upper east side: during a long walk and
talk through Central Park with drummer Barry Altschul; in a conversation with
the young Albanian doorman at Max Roach’s old building on Central Park West;
and on a bizarre subway journey uptown as I sleepwalked my way through one
wrong train after another, and got lost in the Bronx.
It’s hard to say goodbye, even when you’ve been
waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it’s only a matter of time.
Elvin Jones At 75
A
Gloriously Wild Child, An Indomitable Lion Of A Man
It’s hard to let go, even if it’s actually a
blessing for your loved one to be relieved of needless suffering.
It’s hard to accept that they’re no longer among us,
even a year later, though in a sense they are always here, immortal in our
memories, 
forever young in our
hearts.
Elvin Ray Jones was a vital part of countless lives,
let alone my own, a fountainhead of joy, energy and inspiration—and not merely
as a drummer. Elvin was a charismatic,
iconic figure, a wise, generous, loving spirit as illustrated by the testimony
of one speaker after another inside the chapel.
And as my fellow drummers exchanged tall tales and ribald stories out on
the street, a picture emerged of uncommon creativity and celebratory
extravagance: of disciplined genius and hedonistic abandon; a textured,
complex, larger than life figure—at once a gloriously wild child and an
indomitable lion of a man.
Seeing Elvin laid out in his coffin amidst a sea of
flowers was an oddly disquieting experience.
Elvin had always exerted such a profound command over time: to observe
how time had in turn reduced this giant of a man to a gaunt shadow was humbling
in the extreme.
As I took in the noble
outlines of his face, I had to remind myself that this really wasn’t Elvin—only
his trap case. His soul had swooped the
sphere and morphed seamlessly into eternity.
I felt blessed to have seen him play live at
Manhattan’s Blue Note back in December of 2003, where I had the opportunity to
say hello, give him a hug and let him know that he was always in my heart. And while I did note the absence of drum
solos, I thought he seemed pretty damn vital for a 76-year-old man—I should
only be swinging that hard at 53, let alone at 76. Thus the reports of Elvin’s rapid dissolution
in the months preceding his death were rather unsettling.
Max Roach And Elvin Jones
The
Emperor Jones Applies A Submission Hold To The Mad Max
After An
Epic Steel Cage Drum
© Tom Copi
I don’t know whatever gave me the idea that Elvin
would always be here for me. Maybe
because he always had been, much as Max Roach had. Then to see fellow-giant Max in the on-deck
circle as it were, a broad smile on his face as he greeted well-wishers in the
lobby of the Campbell Funeral Home from his wheelchair, well…I guess I kind of
lost it.
All things must pass. Not exactly a revelation, that, but from time
to it’s driven home in a deeply personal way.
For all the love and camaraderie of the event, for all the joyous
memories of Elvin I got to share with my drummer friends, I came home feeling a
little vulnerable and lonely. So I
called my daughter Jennifer in
Metaphysics Alert
“You know, it’s a funny
thing,” I told her, more or less thinking out loud to console myself, “but
about a week after Tony Williams passed away back in 1997, I sat down at my
drum set and was surprised to find that all of a sudden I was able to execute
his signature eighth note hi-hat beat, this sashaying sort of heel-up-toe-down
motion that’s kind of like snuffing out a cigarette. I guess I always understood technically how
he did it. But I was never able to
coordinate it to the point where not only could I actually feel it, but
could hear how to incorporate patterns around this basic pulse. And it made me suspect that when we die some
part of whatever comprises our eternal soul goes to wherever it is our souls go
when we throw off this mortal coil, while some residual scraps of it linger in
the moment, and are divvied up amongst those of us that are in tune with that
spirit.”
And God knows Elvin
certainly portioned out a beaucoup of spirit to all of us while he was
here. Not surprisingly, when I got off
the phone with my daughter, sat down at my kit, and began lightly swinging, I
found myself falling into this circular motion on the ride cymbal…Elvin. Sometimes it seems as though out of every ten
beats I’ve ever played, nine of them were Elvin’s. How many years of my life did I spend trying
to cop his groove on the “Acknowledgement” section of A Love Supreme? I still couldn’t quite comprehend that he was
actually gone.
A Love
Supreme: Acknowledgement
A point driven home when I finally checked my answering machine, and found a call waiting for me from my good friend, Mike Clark, one of the most soulful, swinging drummers I’ve ever known. Somehow we’d missed each other at the wake, and he was calling to give me a shout, and let me know he’d been looking out for me— although the wan, subdued tone in his voice was something new to me. “It’s really weird,” he said slowly in a hollow, hesitant monotone, “but I’m just devastated by the whole thing. I thought I was okay with it, until I went down there and saw him, and…Christ. How weird is it to think about being without him…just normal, everyday life I guess. Jesus, he was like…a King, you know.”
Finality
I too was numbed by the finality of it all, but then
the Spring of 2004 was quite the season of loss, as one American original after
another checked out: guitarist Barney Kessel, drummer Elvin Jones, soprano
saxophonist Steve Lacy and my old friend, guitarist Robert Quine (still
despondent over the unexpected death of his wife last summer, he committed
suicide over the Memorial Day weekend).
Then there were Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles—the Father of Soul
for God’s sake—and mastering engineer John R.T. Davies (British I
believe, but why quibble), whose restoration of Louis
Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Seven recordings as released on JSP
Records was a work of genius. All things
must pass or as Papa Jo Jones used to put it, “Into every reign a little
life must fall.”
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
L-R:
Robert Quine. Ray Charles. Ronald Reagan, John R.T. Davies, Barney Kessel,
Steve Lacy
Part of what made Elvin’s passing particularly
distressing, was the sense that he had been going down slow. All through the winter and spring of 2004 reports
filtered back which indicated that his health was failing…rapidly. It all came to a head about a month before
his passing when an anonymous E-mail spread across the internet like wildfire,
telling of a harrowing gig at Yoshi’s in
Well, the band came out (two saxes, pianist and
bassist) and the place went crazy but...no Elvin...and no Elvin...and no Elvin.
After about five minutes of constant applause, Elvin Jones came out, couldn't
walk and had to be helped by his wife and the band members. We were a 
group of physicians and nurses and we all looked at each other with the
same expression in our faces: "He is dying of heart failure."
His wife gave him the sticks and the band started playing a bebop-like tune. It
was quite an experience seeing him playing that night. The stick in his right
hand (hitting the cymbal) kept slipping back and he needed to reposition it. He
was certainly off, considering the timing of the tune. I couldn't see his left
hand, [and] I could not hear any beats. Similarly with the hi-hat, I did not
hear it all night long. As the performance continued, he looked more ill...in
fact, he closed his eyes once, and grabbed his stomach as if he was in pain,
and everybody in my group got up because we though that he was going to fall.
He finally woke up and continued playing. He took one solo all night long, and
basically what he did was to drop the sticks on the drum one at a time, at a
very slow speed. He did not have the strength or energy to lift up the sticks
from the drum fast enough. The band sounded great, though. I guess he is like
Art Blakey and [has] surrounded himself with the best young players available.
The bassist kept the rhythm going all night long, working super hard, and the
pianist would take very long solos, as [did] both sax players. Elvin could
still swing at a very low speed, [and] was well complemented by the bassist and
pianist.
At the end of the performance, his wife whose name I couldn't catch, came out
and said that Elvin Jones was very ill, dying from heart failure. She also said
that he had not eaten anything that day, but that she had fired his prior three
physicians when they said that he was dying and 
decided to take care of things herself, booking him continuously until
July (she also went on and on talking about medical insurance, doctors,
etc). Elvin did not [say] a word all
night long, and I actually wondered if [he] was still coherent enough (which is
a common, late event in patients with heart failure). He stayed there, sitting
by his drums for about twenty minutes after the performance was over.
Fading Light
© Chip Stern
We all gave him a standing ovation; I guess this is
the way of thanking him for what he has done. He did wave goodbye as he was
helped out of the stage. We sent him our cards, as there are some options for
patients with advanced heart failure (which we happen to specialize in our
group).
I am not sure I can actually
describe the feeling I had that night. The music was good, and seeing him on
the drums made me happy and sad: happy because I got to see him before the
inevitable. Sad because somebody like him should be at home, spending the last
few days of his life surrounded by family and friends. I know he also needs our
support (income as his wife put it). I haven't heard anything about his health
in the news, and patients with heart failure have good and bad days, but I can
actually say that he is in bad shape, weakened by his illness (already
cachectic). I will forever have the image of an elderly Elvin Jones playing the
drums that night.
Five Hundred Percent More Man
Cachexia refers to the appearance of
widespread wasting of the body, pale color, dry wrinkled skin and mental
depression—it is a clinical sign of chronic disease. Word later got back to me that the likely
reason this particular set at Yoshi’s had been so traumatic, was because Elvin
didn’t have his oxygen tank on stage that night. I was simply horrified. Furthermore, it was explained to me how this
is what Elvin wanted. I mean…I’m sorry,
but that image was very hurtful to me: the notion of this larger than life
figure paraded out on stage like a goddamn dancing bear—dying with your boots
on…sorry, I can’t get with the program.
Paul Robeson
A Larger
Than Life Figure
An
Indomitable Force For Justice And Joy
Elvin was strength, vitality and spirit incarnate, a
larger than life figure. His 
music was a force of nature and the joy in his creations has proven
more than equal to his mortality. It’s
instructive to recall another giant amongst 20th Century men, who
like Elvin was—to paraphrase the Bo Diddley song—500% More Man: the great
singer, scholar, actor, athlete, social activist and patriot, Paul Robeson. During the McCarthy Era, the U.S. Government
literally set out to destroy this man because of his support for the labor
movement, his uncompromising 
stand on civil rights, and
his avowed friendship for peoples of all hues throughout the globe. Most disturbing of all to odious
reactionaries like J. Edgar Hoover and his ilk was Robeson’s unapologetic
support for citizens of the third world and his longstanding affection for
peoples of the 
retreated into the privacy
of his sister’s home—this 
mountain of a man didn’t want people to see him as an empty shell of
his former self during his shadow years of gradual dissolution.
God knows I’m sure glad I wasn’t
in attendance at Yoshi’s that night.
Still, what’s done is done, and I’m just glad that
Elvin is at peace. However, my prologue
is now an epilogue, and Elvin has joined the honest ancestors, a tribal elder
for the ages.
Elvin Jones and Johnny Smith were two of my earliest
inspirations as a drummer and a guitarist, let alone as a devoted jazz
fan. They are also two of my favorite
human beings…warm, beautiful, funny cats.
The notion of launching my own all-music web site with extended pieces
on two of the people who had pulled me into music in the first place signified
in my mind how we’d all come full circle.
Ironic that the circle
should thus be broken: after all the work I put into a Website-wide suite of
pieces on Elvin, what had originally been intended to function as an
appreciation, had morphed into something of a tribute...a remembranza—of
him and me.
Still, while I accept the
reality of his death, I remain unaccustomed to the notion of speaking about
Elvin Ray Jones in the past tense. And
so I have attempted to maintain the active voice throughout: both in my Sound
Signature essay, The Emperor Jones: A Lifetime Of Inspiration, and
in the loving record of our conversations dating back to a spring afternoon in
1990—Elvin Jones: The Formative Years. Likewise, there is saxophonist and Jazz
Machine alumnus Dave Liebman’s brilliant Musician’s Corner analysis, The
Presence: The Head, The Hand and The Heart, 
which speaks from the soul and intellect about a living, breathing
creator in the here and now. And of
course, we still have all of our treasured Desert Island Discs to keep
Elvin Jones’ spirit alive: a spirit predicated in the power of rhythm and
melody, the thrill and immediacy of creation, the joy of love and sharing and
human interplay.
“With the Coltrane Quartet, we enjoyed what we did
tremendously,” Elvin once told writer Michael Zwerin. “None of us got rich
playing that music. I know I didn’t, and
I don’t think Jimmy Garrison or McCoy Tyner did. If not for the joy we took in the music,
there’s no other way we could have made that contribution to each other. When there was no one else to play for, we
played for each other. There was a lot
of love and compassion and in that group.
That’s the rapport we had and how we inspired each other.”
