Elvin Jones, 76; Jazz Drummer Worked With John Coltrane

Elvin Jones, the jazz drummer whose dynamic sound was a vital component to John Coltrane’s seminal quartet in the 1960s, has died. He was 76.

Jones died Tuesday of heart failure at a hospital in Englewood, N.J., according to his wife, Keiko. She said he had been in failing health for some time.

From the 1960s on, Jones was a key force in the evolution of jazz drumming with a style that critics viewed as sometimes ferocious, often subtle and always original. Many critics believed Jones was to his generation what Gene Krupa was to the swing era.

“He founded an entire new school of drumming marked by unprecedented freedom, polyrhythmic ingenuity and ferocity,” critic Leonard Feather wrote in 1976.

Jones created what Feather called “a circle of sound.”

“This approach,” Feather noted, “freed the drummer from the role of the accompanist and allowed him to participate more fully in collective improvisation and the overall sound of the ensemble while still supporting individual soloists.”

Jones’ style had the overall impact of transforming the drums from a traditional time-keeping instrument and allowed a dynamic interplay with soloists unprecedented by earlier drum stylists.

The youngest of 10 children, Jones was born in Pontiac, Mich. Two of his brothers -- Thad, a cornetist, composer and arranger, and Hank, a pianist -- became influential jazz performers in their own right.

As a child, Jones liked to carry the bass drum in the school marching band and quickly learned to read music while becoming interested in jazz.

Jones enlisted in the Army just after World War II and traveled the country as part of a special services unit. After his discharge, he joined his musical brothers in Detroit where they played in saxophonist Billy Mitchell’s band, among others.

Detroit was filled with gifted jazz musicians in those days, including guitarist Kenny Burrell, singer Carmen McRae and pianist Tommy Flanagan, and Jones often played with them as the house drummer at the Bluebird Inn. He built a name for himself as one of the leading drummers in Detroit and would attract the attention of visiting giants such as trumpeter Miles Davis and saxophonist Charlie Parker.

Jones moved to New York City in the mid-1950s for an audition with the Benny Goodman orchestra, which included his brother Hank Jones on piano. He didn’t get that job but he found a steady gig with bassist Charles Mingus. After touring with Mingus, Jones performed with pianist Bud Powell and trombonist J.J. Johnson, as well as saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz.

But he came into his own and into the broader jazz consciousness in the 1960s when he joined Coltrane’s quartet, which included pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison.

Critic Nat Hentoff noted that Jones had considerable influence on Coltrane’s work and vice versa.

“Jones had such stamina,” Hentoff told The Times on Wednesday. “Coltrane’s improvisations could go on for most of an hour, and Elvin would be right there with him. They spurred each other and never stopped searching.”

Together, critics said, they redefined the possibilities of the small jazz ensemble.

“The level of saxophone/percussion engagement that Coltrane and Jones realized in extended performances such as ‘My Favorite Things,’ ‘Chasin’ the Trane,’ ‘Impressions’ and ‘AfroBlue’ intimated chaos yet retained clear connection to structure and tempo,” critic Bob Blumenthal wrote in DownBeat magazine some years ago.

“At the same time,” Blumenthal wrote, “more introspective performances such as the album ‘John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman’ revealed Jones’ ability to sustain his complex polyrhythms at more restrained dynamic levels.”

For Jones’ part, working with Coltrane was a revelation.

“When I was playing with Coltrane, I heard purity in his tone, in his discipline for study. That’s what he was projecting. I think it affected me ... ,” Jones once told an interviewer for DownBeat.

“The most impressive thing about working with ‘Trane was a feeling of steady, collective learning,” he later said.

But in 1966, Jones left Coltrane’s group after Coltrane decided to add a second drummer, a decision Jones felt was inconsistent with his own musical direction. Coltrane died the next year.

Jones went to Europe, played with Duke Ellington’s band for a couple of weeks and returned to the United States. Over the next four decades, he formed and led several outstanding groups under his own name. His band eventually became known as the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine.

Jones was known in the jazz world for his generosity of spirit and as a nurturer of new talent. By the early 1990s, his group had included such up-and-coming stars as saxophonist Joshua Redman, trumpeter Nicholas Payton and trombonist and arranger Delfeayo Marsalis. It also included Coltrane’s son, Ravi.

Over the years, Jones dismissed the pyrotechnics of some drummers, once telling Whitney Balliett of the New Yorker magazine: “I never learned any tricks, anything flashy like juggling sticks or throwing them in the air. That kind of thing stops me inside. After all, Artur Rubenstein doesn’t play piano runs with his chin.”

“His functional equipment,” Feather once noted, “was far less elaborate than many drummers who may believe that the more cymbals, bass drums and other equipment one has, the easier it is to create ideas.”

“His complexity stems from a lightning mind, with hands and feet to match.”

In addition to his wife, Jones’ survivors include his brother, Hank. Thad Jones died in 1986.