BST 84414

Elvin Jones - Merry Go Round

Released - 1972

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 12, 1971
Frank Foster, tenor sax, alto flute, contra-alto clarinet; Joe Farrell, Dave Liebman, tenor, soprano sax; Gene Perla, bass, electric bass; Elvin Jones, drums.

9078 Who's Afraid...

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 16, 1971
Steve Grossman, Dave Liebman, tenor, soprano sax; Joe Farrell, tenor, soprano sax, flute, piccolo; Pepper Adams, baritone sax; Chick Corea, Jan Hammer, piano, electric piano; Yoshiaki Masuo, guitar; Gene Perla, bass, electric bass; Elvin Jones, drums; Don Alias, congas, glockenspiel, Oriental bells.

9071 (tk.2) 'Round Town
9072 (tk.5) Brite Piece
9073 (tk.4) Lungs
9074 (tk.6) A Time For Love
9075 (tk.2) Tergiversation
9077 (tk.3) The Children's Merry-Go-Round March
9076 (tk.2) La Fiesta

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Round Town	Gene Perla	December 16 1971
Brite Piece	Dave Liebman	December 16 1971
Lungs	Jan Hammer	December 16 1971
A Time for Love	Johnny Mandel, Paul Francis Webster	December 16 1971
Side Two
Tergiversation	Gene Perla	December 16 1971
La Fiesta	Chick Corea	December 16 1971
The Children's Merry-Go-Round March	Keiko Jones	December 16 1971
Who's Afraid...	Frank Foster	February 12 1971

Liner Notes

Names strike images. Shades, glimpses of words, hints of concepts that somehow seem to mean this person or that. I don't know what pictures the phrase "Elvin Jones" sparks in you. But when I see that combination of syllables, hear it spoken, these things flash about abstractly before me: Intricacy (some multi-geared mechanical marvel whose motions are impossible to follow with the naked eye, to understand with the analytical heart). Shape (lines and points and relationships defined by those same impossible motions.) Power (a fierce relentlessness, a sure-footed forward rush). And, most of all, drums. Just drums. For Elvin Jones, in terms of his (recently) historicat contributions to jazz, to the very nature of the rhythmic sense in jazz, and for his continuing commitment to the intelligent syntactical revision of this part of music, might quite legitimately be considered to be the drummer. The Drummer.

Jones was born in Michigan in 1928—his brothers are the extraordinarily refined pianist Hank Jones and the glittering trumpeter/fluegelhorn player Thad Jones — and he taught himself to play the drums. He then followed a course that was common for jazz musicians of his generation: school combos, military band, Birdland. From the first, he played with the big boys, and a list of musicians he has accompanied (or who have accompanied him) reads like an index to a history of modern jazz, Some of them have been Charlie Mingus, Bud Powell, Miles Davis (on some early Debut sides and on parts of the legendary "Sketches of Spain," for instance), Sonny Rollins, Gil Evans, and Ornette Coleman. And, of course, John Coltrane, and it was with 'Trane's quartet that he first gained the attention of jazz critics and audiences at large. (It's commonly held, incidentally, that Coltrane was responsible for developing Jones' talent, for encouraging him to strike out in new directions; anyone who played with Coltrane was doubtless influenced and encouraged by him, but it should also be noted that—according to at least one prominent jazz musician who knew and knows Elvin well—Mr. Jones was playing just as beautifully, in just as revolutionary a style, for years before he joined Coltrane.)

Jones made his first lps as a leader in 1961, with a group that included brothers Thad and Hank, bassist Richard Davis, Frank Wess on flute, and Frank Foster on tenor, and with a septet co-led with fellow drummer Philly Joe Jones. With his bassist/ partner from Coltrane's group, he recorded an unusually successful lp for Impulse in 1963 (with Sonny Simmons, Prince Lasha, McCoy Tyner, and the exceptionally fluent baritone of Charles Davis), led some further recording dates for Impulse and Atlantic, and, in 1968, made his first lps as a leader for Blue Note — trio sessions with Garrison and reedman Joe Farrell, called "Puttin' It Together" (BST-84282 BLP4282) and "The Ultimate" (BST-84305 [{BLP4305]]), respectively.

In praise, in definition of Elvin's singular skills, it would be difficult to cite a more appropriate authority than Coltrane himself, who once wrote of Jones "I especially like his ability to mix and juggle rhythms. He's also always aware of everything else that's happening. I guess you could say he has the ability to be in three places at the same time."

O.K. The Drummer, (And may red-haired rocksters take the hindmost.) The Drummer and a brief sketch of his personal history, his musical and historical importance. De rigueur for liner notes like these, perhaps, especially since Elvin — like Blue Note itself — is reaching new audiences today, but ultimately hardly essential. More to the point is this most recent music of Elvin's, recorded (as I write this) a scant two months ago. The group assembled for these sessions seemed to me, when I first saw it defined on paper, to be an incredibly adventurous integration of players and playing styles, perhaps the most exciting Jones had yet combined. On first and second and third happy listening, it turns out to be every bit as exciting and diverse as it looks.

Bassist Gene Perla and reedman David Liebman are currentty members of Elvin's group, as are percussionist Don Alias and saxophonist Steve Grossman (both veterans of the Miles Davis aggregation, by the way). Chick Corea, whose piano was briefly joined to the Jones ensemble in late 1971 has also played with Miles and is well-known in avant-garde lore as the leader of Circle, which included Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul. Jan Hammer is a young Czech pianist who led his own trio in Europe, was Sarah Vaughan's accompanist for a time, and is now a part of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. Yoshiaki Masuo was brought to New York by Elvin and Gene Perla; they had heard him in Japan as guitarist with Sadao Watanabe's group. Joe Farrell was a regular associate of Elvin's until recently, was a featured soloist with the Thad Jones/MeJ Lewis big band, and has lately recorded two albums of his own for CTI. Pepoer Adams, who guest stars on "The Children's Merry-Go-Round March," has played with such as Lucky Thompson, Benny Goodman, and Chet Baker, and co-led The Jazz Lab with Donald Byrd and the Pepper-Knepper Quintet with trombonist Jimmy Knepper. Frank Foster was a youngster when he played with people like Wardell Gray and Billy Eckstine, did some fantastic growing as a soloist and arranger with Count Basie, and has been a frequent fellow of Elvin Jones in a variety of contexts.

The following, briefly, is what this variegated crew is playing:

"'Round Town" is a sort of sophisticated R&B, a strong, riffing theme accented by Masuo's bold, imaginative guitar fills, The reeds are bright and vivid and quite unrestrained, but they never dissolve into senseless prattle. "Brite Piece" shines through a shower of Oriental bells, as Hammer's expansive piano lines back up the unusual two-soprano voicings- (Composer) Liebman's solo seems to ride exuberantly atop Alias' animated percussion (Jones, of all people, doesn't need another percussionist in his group, but he sure as hell knows how to use one), and Jones himself is particularly impressive, in a way that the casual listener might miss at first. Listen closely to his cymbal patterns—the way he breaks up the timeline and then puts it back together with his own impeccable logic. "Lungs," featuring Hammer, might be called a paean to the technical skill of today's young jazz musicians: both Hammer and Perla are impossibly fast and amazingly articulate, and their elder the drummer isn't exactly dragging his feet. Or his hands. Listen again to the cymbals. Just the cymbals. What he does is so difficult to analyze and yet so right.

"A Time For Love" is a haunting ballad, somewhat reminiscent of "P. P. Phoenix" on Elvin's last album, with thoughtful solos by Farrell and Corea and with yet another illustration of how tastefully, inconspicuously acute Jones' drumming can be. "Tergiversation" (the name means something like the act of changing one's mind continually, of being a renegade) is something of a treat for contemporary piano aficionados: it's mostly a duo by Hammer and Corea, while Jones plays fast and forceful brushes in the background.

On "La Fiesta," Corea has fun with some Latinate piano sounds, against a rhythm section that happily recalls the best of Art Blakey's jazz messages, Farrell's flamboyant fire-dance of a solo swirls into further merry-making by Corea. On "The Children's Merry-Go-Round March," written by Keiko (Mrs. Elvin) Jones, the drummer sets off with military cadences that double-time into profoundly secular poly-rhythms, as Perla's mock-solemn bass trods behind. Then the theme bursts out, grand and sprightly and complete with glockenspiel, Jones' solo is continuous, over, under, and around the march — his playing is like a merry-go-round, in a sense, as it changes continually in a blur of forms and colors, but maintaining perfect, circular symmetry all the while, The final track is "Who's Afraid...an affectionate tribute to the late co-founder of Blue Note, Frank Wolff A veritable flurry of rich reed sounds, led by Frank Foster's alto clarinet, spills over Perla's rock-like Fender foundation. Elvin's playing is virtually a paradigm of restrained virtuosity; he's not the flashiest drummer around (unless he wants to be), because he doesn't have to be. The true genius in any field of endeavor doesn't call attention to what he's doing. He just does it. Elvin is a genius of the drums, so Elvin just plays. Elvin is The Drummer.

— COLMAN ANDREWS