Elvin Jones Music

Yeh.. This is one of McLaughlin's best. But, there is a sound quality issue with this recording. It's kinda hard to pin down, but I'd love to hear it remixed. Having said that, it's still a gem. Every track is a winner. What a great set of tunes, My Favourite Things, Afro Blue and After the Rain, and Tones etc. and the synergy between these three is magic. If you havent' got it - well, I recommend it to you. If you're new to JM, check out Remember Shakti and for the straight up jazzer, try Extraopolation. Fantastic! Mind you, John did do a few duds... What's that Allegria Belaforte whatsamajig album.. with drum synth... what was he thinking! BUT, apologies Mr McLaughlin, he has enriched our lives with so many precious gems and THIS!! thankyou so much!

elvin and john are fab, but a band needs a bass player!

This recording is John McLaughlin's homage to Coltrane. If you enjoy both artists, then you should love this. McLaughlin's musical sensibility, his consummate, exquisite guitar playing, and the often-subtle interplay between the musicians are a pleasure to hear from beginning to end. This is not a recording where McLaughlin displays the diverse range of musical styles and cultures that he does in some of his other work. This one is more cohesive in terms of style and sound. The greatness of this recording is that it flawlessly evokes the beauty of Coltrane's music. This is as creative and satisfying as McLaughlin's best.

This is one of John McLaughlin's best recordings. It's nice to hear him playing in a straight-ahead context. Some people on this page have complained about the sound of his guitar. It sounds very much like the guitar he plays on "Johnny McLaughlin Electric Guitarist". I believe it is a hollow-body electric with a scalloped fretboard, which gives the guitar a very unusual solo voice - very beautiful in fact. A strong recording from a great musician!

I always enjoy this record. There's great empathy among the players. I think Elvin Jones, the master, is the real hero of this music. He keeps McLaughlin and Joey DeFranceso, two incredibly gifted musicians from getting too technical or flashy. Rather, it sounds like they all Heard (with a big "H") each other - there's a nice spirit to this record.

By the way, they all play great . . . but you knew that.

As a fellow drummer, I see Elvin Jones as a force of nature--a volcano of power and force, but always with great feeling and touch. This is a unique recording in that we hear Elvin in a big band setting, expressing another side of his great talent. A great recording and a great drummer/musician...plus, the Jones brothers are all here: Thad, Elvin, and Hank.

This jazz has life! Rarely is there a dull moment on these two albums one one CD. Each song does its own thang with a personality all its own; from the mysterious African jungle to the good-time feel of a New Orleans club. It is not quite a five star album but comes close enough. Very solid and consistent. The high point is perhaps "Tintiyana" with fun-loving solos and a beautiful polyrhythmic piano intro. Here is the lineup of musicians:
Art Davis - Bass
Leonard Feather - Original Liner Notes
Don Friedman - Piano
Elvin Jones - Drums
Hank Jones - Piano
Thad Jones - Trumpet, Cornet
Melba Liston - Arranger, Conductor
Hank Mobley - Sax (Tenor)
Charles K.I. Davis - Sax (Baritone)
Steve James - Piano (Electric)
George Abend - Percussion
Abdullah Ibrahim - Piano
Frank Wess - Flute, Sax (Tenor)
Donald Moore - Bass

All of these guys are good and play well together. The only question is one of individual taste. Sample the tracks above and follow your instincts. This is not a B.S. jazz album. If you like the samples, you will like all of what Elvin and his men deliver here. What else would you expect from the world's best jazz drummer?

this has become one of my favorite albums. pharoah sanders is in fine form , elvin jones is a swirling fountain rhythm machine. and sharrock is mean and nasty. he realy is a forgotten man. you never here him mentioned with mcglaughlin and dimeloa. but this album rescues him from obscurity.just in time before his death. thats a shame. he might of run off a string of greatness after. im glad to have it. its jazzy, its proggy, its avant guard, reflective, and very listenable. no filler here. a very engaging cd.manny mansions is my favorite track.

On first hearing it, you might feel nothing but regret about "Ask the Ages." I certainly have never had an opportunity to play this disc with a loved one within earshot.

The session draws you in completely, though, within its first few measures. And with time, you may feel nothing else comes close. It is, to my mind, THE free jazz masterpiece. Its title is no pomp. Lasswell, as producer, strips the players' sounds down to the essence of each, and they gel into something every bit as timeless as the album's name suggests. It is a session sound that somehow is both intimate and spacious at the same time.

Every track will repeatedly shock, both in clarity and brutalism, sending chills right up and down the spine. The sound Sharrock gets out of his Les Paul and Marshall stack are the Alpha and the Omega of this date. He opens and closes each piece with ringing, transcendant melody. Then Pharaoh Sanders blasts in, and Sharrock can still ride that one-man herd. But incredibly, during every one of these Hendrixian fuzz-fests, Bill Lasswell has the guitarist's amp low in the mix.

That means we have all sorts of room to listen for every faint, layered rumble out of the superstar rhythm duo of Charnett Moffett and Elvin Jones. The two sound supremely confident of this whole fusion. Charnett Moffett is in his absolute prime, with a jaw-dropping 12 bars of perfection on "Who Does She Hope to Be?" And I have never understood Elvin Jones' technique better than I have on this disk -- every tap or roll sounds like it comes from an awesome, rainmaking deity just over the horizon.

And there's more going on than each man working alongside the other. "Little Rock" for instance, is a nice play on words. Step back from the solos, and you'll sense in the syncopated melodicism, Sharrock and Sanders having a little unspoken fun with the old doo-wop repertoire.

Sharrock's solo on "Many Mansions" is the most thrilling sound ever to issue from a Les Paul. (A fair-weather tribute to Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner.") And there was never a sweeter, or more anthemic close, than "Once Upon a Time." It will have you whistling for hours, until you dare spin up the whole CD again -- so that this time you can listen that much more closely.

I have been returning to this disc since it caught my ear as an undergrad in DC in 1991, and I could never part with it -- no matter what heights those eBay bids might scale.

I'd never heard of Sonny Sharrock until someone mentioned him to me in an e-mail discussion about Jerry Garcia. You ought to hear this album. If you can find it! Powerful, sensitive playing, simultaneously Zappa-like with JB Hutto flavoring. New ground broken. It is tragic that he died fairly young.

The song "who does she hope to be" is in my opinion what true love must sound like. I remember where I was the day I heard that Sonny died. He truly lives through this great body of work. He is fiercely beautiful.

This is a great jazz album...not for everyone though. First off, the fact that Pharoah Sanders plays on this one should clue you in that there will be violent, chaotic bursts of sound...not for everyone's musical taste. Sharrock also plays a whirlwind of notes, sometimes in a violently pointless manner. But the album swells into interesting tones and changes that make this an extremely unique accomplishment of jazz music. As a musician, I loved the sounds..the harmonies and noises...the rawness, nakedness of sound.

At This Point in Time is certainly Elvin's most experimental and probably most unsung album of all time. While most of his albums are wonderful and feature Elvin doing music in his Coltrane-period jazz style (although a little bit more straight ahead than most of the stuff he did with Trane) this particular album features intricate, percussion heavy compositions with harmonically-rich horn arrangments and some wonderful moog synth and fender rhodes work by Jan Hammer. I wouldn't exactly call the music fusion or free jazz (if only because it doesn't really have a funk or a rock edge to it and there aren't any freakout skronk moments) however a better term may be world jazz. The song structures feature a lot of African and Afro-Cuban style percussion along with some beautiful, catchy, modal-based melodies and some amazing drum solos. Probably the most interesting music of Elvin's career. Do yourself a favor and buy this album immediately if you like Elvin, or if you are a fan of different and good jazz-based music. I real gem!

Yeah, this is my favorite Elvin Jones album!
The Cd features excellent Jazz-Fusion compositions and Elvin has all the power down. His typical playing is set into another form, direction and league. Jan Hammer on keys, Candido Camero and Omar Clay on percussion, Pepper Adams and Frank Foster on saxes and Cornell Dupree on guitar - what a line up!
The result is more than convincing!
Killer cut: "The Unknighted Nations" by Frank Foster!

Get it!

Zip bang pow and slap the back a that hip trunk. That sounds like the blessed union of the greatest of jazz elements old and new and though dated some by this writing, holds up for all time. Where has this rich fudge been all my life? I been starving for sounds that funky and that sophisticated harmonically.

I really like the tracks on this album.. uh.. until about 1 or 2 minutes into each peice. The drummer could not be more in the way, more annoying, rambunctious, out of balance and out of place after a minute or two into almost every track. There are only a couple of tracks where this isn't the case. Granted, a drum solo is fine from time to time, but this is rediculus. Wanting some nice music to relax or have playing in the background while company is over, this album does NOT work. Ok, so maybe thats not it's purpose, but still, no thanks. Maybe it looked cooler in person with arms flailing faster than the eye can perceive.

About as good as you can get.

Great Jazz Trio, indeed. For once the hype is true.

It's been a marvelous past twelve months for old jazz guys--stunning releases from Ahmad Jamal (In Search of Momentum), Abdullah Ibrahim (African Magic), Roy Haynes (Love Letters). And now, perhaps the best of all, The Great Jazz Trio's Autumn Leaves.

What I love about this disc is how effortless great playing and musicianship become in the hands of the absolute masters--and how listenable. This is a disc you could feel equally good about as an introduction for your skeptical friends to acoustic improvised music, or merely as a vehicle for basking in sonic glories.

Perhaps most noticibly, Elvin Jones (drums) shows why he's undoubtedly THE standout drummer of his generation: he simply gets more out of his kit than anyone else. Proof? His mind-boggling playing on "Caravan," initially, with the restless, throbbing vibe he creates, then with the incredible solo he casually rips off. But he consistently dazzles. Brother Hank on piano's no slouch either. With a deftness approaching magical proportions, taste out the wazoo, deep swing, and a profoundly grounded blooziness, he shows why Detroit (Tommy Flanigan, Kirk Lightsey) is the jazz piano capital of the world.

The ringer is Richard Davis. Not one of the Jones brothers, not as well known (perhaps) as either of them, he nevertheless seems the absolutely perfect choice for the bass chair. He takes center stage on "Bye Bye Blackbird" and doesn't disappoint. He's got that great woody tone fully on display here as he effortlessly spins off some slick opening lines and exits with a stunning arco outro.

Standards have seldom sounded this good, and these Old Masters raise the bar impossibly high for their young counterparts.