Jim Chapin always stated his admiration for what he called "drum athletes" (which he was clear to point out is a separate category from great musical players), and I have heard him bring up Rufus Jones a couple of times as a great example of this type of player. I could scan and send it to you, if you'd like.ģ. I have the Modern Drummer Digital Archive of all their issues from 1977 to 2001, and there is an interview with Jones in it from the early 80's. I found out recently that he authored a drum book in 1972 called "Professional Drum Exercises: Ģ. Although Duke DID try to get Elvin in the band, although apparently that only lasted a few weeks (my hunch is that it didn't work out not because of Ellington's dissatisfaction, but rather the dissatisfaction of the the other members of the band, who couldn't hang with what Elvin was laying down).ġ. I'm guessing that Duke really liked having a strong, driving drummer in the band, and that subtlety (from the drum chair, at least) was not as important to him (I think that Jones's playing was kind of similar to Sam Woodyard's in this regard, and Woodyard was with Ellington for around 10 years, I think). Although I would point out that Jones's tenure with Duke's band was for a decent period of time-I think he was with the band from the mid-60's (he's on the Far East Suite album) through the early 70's (I think his tenure with Basie was much shorter, probably for around a year, or maybe even less). I'm curious to hear people's comments about him. His 1983 interview in Modern Drummer*, much of which is about soloing, and getting a response from an audience, seems to support that. He plays the arrangements impeccably, and lays on the spectacle when he's featured- maybe all that was required of a road guy. I think possibly we're in more of a show musician rather than a purist jazz musician mentality here. Interestingly, he doesn't seem to have insane chops for playing actual fast tempos in the usual bebop way: the way he handles Cherokee on that same record- playing quarter notes on the cymbal, accenting the 1 and 3, lots of bass drum on 1, lots of left hand and bass drum activity, and not much happening with the hihat- it's really a different kind of groove. And there are other considerations besides making a pretty-sounding drumming performance. I'm not unsympathetic there are times when you're really playing for the band and the situation, where you end up playing in a way that might not record well. I frankly do not like the cymbal sound here: This track, and this record generally, really wears out my ears. Here he is playing an arrangement called The Fox Hunt- the owner has disabled embedding, so you'll have to click this link to listen on YouTube. He sounds great playing with Maynard Ferguson's band, on the Roulette recordings. On Jones's actual supportive playing with a band, he generally plays with a lot of taste. It reads like a sonic triathalon it doesn't compute as a musical statement, to my ears. In a similar vein, here's the drum feature tune from Jones's one record as leader:įor serious snare drum guys this has got to be really exciting stuff it's hard for me to process it as a piece of music- the soloing at least. Treating the drums like it's a musical instrument in an ensemble. My entire playing life, what you do on the drums is play to fit the situation, and make some kind of musical statement. Now, to me it's extremely weird to play a full-on drum corps style drum feature in the middle of very intimate piano trio music. I saw this and I needed to figure out what the hell is going on: He was a big band drummer mainly active in the 60s, in the spectacular, chops-intensive mode of Sonny Payne, Louis Bellson, Buddy Rich, et al, though Jones is clearly a sideman, a road guy, rather than a marquis name. I'm kind of narrow in my listening habits- I never listened to a whole lot of big band, so I never knew about the drummer Rufus Jones until I saw this video on the internet.
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