For Elvin Jones and Duke Ellington

On Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, Duke and Elvin Jones are perfectly aligned. Ellington is at ease with Elvin’s triplets and double-time on “In A Sentimental Mood”, hooks up with Jones for a cool strut on “Big Nick”, and blesses Elvin’s dense swirl with some perfect chords at the conclusion of “Angelica”.

Three years later, John Coltrane hired drummer Rashied Ali to play alongside Elvin Jones. Though Coltrane’s Meditations features Ali and Jones playing together and making it work, Ali’s multidirectional approach— a dense but pulse-less churn, perfectly suited to Coltrane’s emerging new sound— had no natural connection to Jones’s sophisticated and personal take on the Kenny Clarke-Max Roach tradition. Coltrane had been Elvin Jones’s musical home for the past five years, and now, with Ali in the band, Jones was suffering constant migraines and looking for a change.

In January, 1966, Elvin Jones received an offer to join Duke Ellington, an offer he accepted. A few weeks later, Elvin left Coltrane for good, joining Duke in Germany. The senior Ellingtonians were infamous for hazing new arrivals, but we can only imagine Jones’s reaction when he was informed that he would, once again, be playing with another drummer.

With John Coltrane, it had been Rashied Ali, and now with Duke Ellington, it was Skeets Marsh, from Philadelphia (little-known outside this scenario). As Elvin said, playing with Skeets Marsh was “even worse than [playing with] Ali”.

Lewis Porter has Elvin Jones participating in only three Ellington concerts; Jones himself lists six gigs with Duke in his Whitney Baillett profile; Ashley Kahn writes that Elvin spent three weeks with Ellington.

Whatever the precise dimensions, Elvin’s sojourn as an Ellingtonian was brief and uncomfortable, and a curiosity for many Elvin and Ellington fans. A couple videos and some audio from this time have been on YouTube for years, and while I can understand why it didn’t work, much of it is better than reputation suggests. (I like “El Viti” from this concert.)

But I keep re-watching and thinking about the six-minute video of Elvin and Duke playing “Take The A Train”. The more I mull it over, the more this glimpse of Jones with Ellington seems to capture the essence of Elvin’s enormous contribution.

Because the auspices of the gig are so imperfect, everything great about Elvin Jones is sort of set in relief, on perfect display. It’s a glimpse of the depth and strength of Elvin Jones’s commitment and conviction— to himself, to the drums, to jazz— in something like their purest form. If Elvin Jones can make magic here (and he does), there is nothing, musically, he cannot do.

The Jones/Ellington “Take The A Train” video starts with Duke telling the huge audience (3,000 people?) that “the first chorus will be played by our piano player”. Duke then walks to the piano, calls for 3/4, and starts the tune. Non-plussed Skeets Marsh joins on a closed hi-hat, and Elvin comes in soon after.

By the second eight bars, Marsh has taken a clear backseat to Elvin. By the bridge, Jones is airborne with the 2-against-3 groove and texture he used for countless versions of “My Favorite Things” and “Afro-Blue”, now on “Take The A Train”. It’s so smooth and natural that I have to remind myself: Elvin Jones is playing John Coltrane vocabulary with Duke Ellington and it works!

A few shots of Duke confirm what we hear: Ellington is at ease with Jones. Then, from 1:15 to about 1:54, we get a two-shot of Duke and Elvin. Both Jones and Ellington are where they belong, completely in-sync.

After Duke’s chorus, we hear the “A Train” theme (in 4/4), and then Ellington gestures for solos from the two drummers. Skeets Marsh goes first, tossing off a few conventional snare and tom combinations, sounding sort of like Louis Bellson, but without Bellson’s superior touch and grace, and concludes by imperiously signaling Jones to solo.

From Elvin’s first note, we completely forget about Skeets Marsh. With all the confidence and gusto in the world, Jones develops his themes, expanding and contracting as needed, his life-affirming rhythms making me smile. Elvin Jones is so bold and imaginative that his chorus on “Take The A Train” is advanced by today’s standards; sixty years ago, with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, this must have sounded positively alien.

Marsh responds with a few more Bellson-minus-the-charm licks, ending not with an accusatory point, but by reaching across his own kit and smashing Elvin’s crash cymbal, an embarrassing display of top-dog dominance.

As offended as I am by Marsh’s outburst on Elvin’s behalf, Jones himself barely reacts, instead turning Marsh’s ludicrous and insecure gesture into the opening phrase of a second solo, now without meter and with Jones’s signature phrases from the Coltrane era.

Just as Jones is about shift to second gear, Skeets Marsh barges in, the band plays the last eight bars of “Take The A Train”, and the tune comes to a crashing halt. At the end, Elvin looks down, and turns his right stick over, projecting (sorely-tried) generosity and a powerful, secure self-confidence in a momentary glimpse.

Though Jones’s first post-Coltrane venture is not going the way he might have hoped, the future is bright: Elvin Jones can do anything.

Though I continually fall short, I aspire to what Elvin Jones does in this video. We are so lucky to have all this great music.

I’m hard at work on Chapter 3. More soon.