RTP-area local music and culture

[Walter Davis <aimjazz AT bigfoot.com>]

Jazz Drummer Elvin Ray Jones Dies at 76

May 19, 12:07 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Elvin Ray Jones, a renowned jazz drummer and member of 
John Coltrane's quartet who also played alongside Duke Ellington, 
Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, died Tuesday. He was 76. Jones died of 
heart failure in an Englewood, N.J., hospital, said his wife of 38 
years, Keiko Jones.

"He's happy. No more suffering," said Keiko Jones. "He's been fighting 
for so long."

Jones, called by Life magazine "the world's greatest rhythmic drummer," 
was born in Pontiac, Mich., one of ten children. He had two musician 
brothers: Hank, a jazz pianist, and Thad, a trumpet and flugelhorn
player.

Jones entered the Detroit jazz scene in the late 1940s after touring as 
a stagehand with the Army Special Services show Operation Happiness.

After a brief gig at the Detroit club Grand River Street, he went to 
work at another club, backing up such jazz greats as Parker, Davis and 
Wardell Grey.

Jones came to New York in 1955 for an unsuccessful audition for the 
Benny Goodman band but stayed in the city, joining Charlie Mingus' band 
and making a record called "J is Jazz." In 1960, he became a member of 
John Coltrane's quartet.

Jones, with his rhythmic, innovative style, became one of jazz's most 
famous drummers under Coltrane. He can be heard on Coltrane's "A love 
Supreme" and "Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard."

After leaving the Coltrane quartet, Jones briefly played with Duke 
Ellington and formed the Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine. He put out several 
solo albums and continued to tour, including last month in Oakland, 
Calif., Keiko Jones said.

Besides his wife, Jones is survived by a son and a daughter.