Jazz Vignette 4 - Jo Jones by Dan Morgenstern

© Introduction. Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

I think that it’s safe to say that during the heyday of the initial Count Basie Band in the late 1930s and early 40s, very few members of the general public went to hear the Basie band to watch Papa Jo Jones play drums.

The drumming spectacle that Gene Krupa created with Benny Goodman or the percussive fireworks that Chick Webb set off fronting his own band at the Savoy Ballroom were simply not on exhibit with Jo at the controls of the Basie band’s Engine Room.

What was on offer was a masterful demonstration of how to propel a big band using drums as an integral part of a four instrument rhythm section along with piano, bass and guitar.

The idea was to use this unit as a whole to generate a propulsive momentum that swung the band and with Jo booting things along behind the drum kit, no band has ever swung harder.

Yet, despite its enormous drive Jo’s approach to rhythm always had a light, airy feeling.

Here’s another of our Jazz vignettes, this one drawn from Dan Morgenstern’s Living with Jazz [2004], which sheds more light on Jo, who is often described as “The Man Who Played Like the Wind.”

© Copyright ® Dan Morgenstern, copyright protected; all rights reserved, the author claims no right of copyright usage.

Jo Jones

“There isn't one drummer in the world—whether he knows it or not — who doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to Jo Jones," said Chuck Lampkin, the gifted young percussionist with Ahmad Jamal's trio, recently. His sentiments are consistently echoed by the young players whom Jones affectionately refers to as his "kiddies." He, in turn, is often identified as "old man Jo Jones," to avoid confusion with another famous drummer, Philly Joe Jones.

[Dan wrote this piece in 1965 when the more common reference was becoming “Papa” Jo Jones.]

There is nothing old, however, about Jo Jones's appearance or outlook—nor is anyone who has ever seen him in action likely to confuse him with any other drummer.

The effortless grace of his movements, on or off the stand, bespeaks his early days as a dancer, just as his solo work may sometimes remind of the fascinating rhythmic patterns created by the masters of the vanishing art of jazz tap dance. His superb coordination, erect posture, and flashing smile make Jones one of the visually most exciting of jazz drummers, though he never indulges in musically superfluous displays. Behind the drums, Jones is the image of the professional —a man with pride in his art. With this pride goes a deep concern for the welfare — spiritual and material — of those who hold the future of jazz in their hands: the kiddies.

"I live, sleep, eat, and think music and the people who make it," Jones said, adding, with a touch of humor, "I have five radios and three TV sets, a tape recorder, three record players that don't work, and two phones.

"So many mechanical improvements have been thrust upon us that we don't even have time to read the instructions. There are more musicians out here now, and fewer places to play. But it has happened before, and we managed to cope with it. First radio came in, then the talkies — thousands of musicians who worked in silent movie theaters were thrown out of work — and then television. But it's not a Frankenstein — you don't have to combat what man has created. Nothing mechanical can take the place of what is natural. And the population is growing."

Jones is a quick, fluent conversationalist, and while his talk is sometimes elliptical, he always gets to the point.

"Musicians have lost perspective on how to play with people before they play for people," he said. "The emphasis on records, publicity, and propaganda doesn't help. Yet we have a better grade of musicians in jazz today than ever before. One thing that is wrong with the music business today — the shortage of available experience — the musicians can't cure. But fundamentally, academically, they are better equipped to perform now."

What, then, is the trouble? "Attitude," Jones said. "I hear ne'er-do-wells browbeat the successful: 'I can play better than so-and-so, and he's got all the gigs.' Sure, I say. But can you be there on time, sober, and ready to play?"

A reasonable answer to this reasonable question is rarely forthcoming, Jones indicated.

"Everybody wants to find an excuse," he continued. "Nobody wants to work. They want to pick and choose. They ask questions: 'Who else is playing on the gig? Do I have to wear a tuxedo?' They ask for the money before they do the job; they say yes, but don't show if a better offer comes up."

Such criticism might sound overly stern if it did not come from a man who has set — and kept — the highest standards of professional conduct for himself. Anyone who has observed Jones in different working situations can attest to the fact that he shows up neat, clean, ahead of time, and ready to play his best, whether the job is at Carnegie Hall or at a decidedly unglamorous neighborhood bar.

"In music," he said, "if you accept a responsible position, you have a responsibility to yourself. Musicians tell me they are not respected. You should command respect, not request or demand it. In forty-three years as a professional, I have never done anything wrong on the bandstand." And he amplifies this: "If it seemed wrong, it was right," implying that there sometimes may be more to a musical situation than meets the eye of the outsider.

"People wouldn't hire me years ago because, they said, I was eccentric. I'll stay eccentric, in their terms. Youngsters today have everything but self-respect."

Jones is aware of the factors that have caused the attitudes he considers reprehensible.

"In jazz," he stated, "we don't have the minor leagues anymore, where one could prove himself before going out into the big time. We despoiled our potential geniuses by bringing them out too soon. Your emotions aren't stable enough at nineteen or twenty-three to know the whys and wherefores of life."

And he is aware of other complicating circumstances:

"There are all kinds of overworked terms, like 'free form,' 'freedom,' 'modern.'.. . Modern was an old phrase a hundred years ago. I've just read a book published in 1856, which was full of references to 'modern' philosophy. I've played through ragtime, gutbucket, hokum, get-off music, swing, bebop, cool, rhythm-and-blues, rock-and-roll. Every two years someone comes up with a new descriptive adjective. You must be flexible. If you run a liquor store and don't stock gin because you dislike it yourself, you're bound to lose sales. The musician has a commodity to sell. And it wasn't so different in the 'old days.' The jazzmen wanted to do just 'hot tunes,' not the waltzes and rhumbas they also had to play."

Jones also resents musical intolerance and the tendency among some younger players to put down musicians who ask them to play in ways that may not be of their own choice. He's had to play accompaniment to all kinds of different players, he said, trumpeters, clarinetists, pianists. These men were stylists, and since it

takes time to become one, the stylist, in Jones's estimation, has the right to demand certain things from his accompanist that fit his style.

"You play for the leader," he said. "But it's very hard to convey this to young musicians."

The drummer is quick to point out, however, that the blame for this state of affairs must be shared by the leaders themselves.

"To establish leadership is a problem," he said. "It has always been like that; to be a leader takes special talent. Bennie Moten was the greatest bandleader who ever lived, but though he was a pianist, he didn't play with the band. Today's leaders are all playing leaders, but there never were too many men who could be both great leaders and great players. Tommy Dorsey was one of the few. Chick Webb was another. Cab Calloway was a master showman, not a player. And Jimmie Lunceford didn't play; he just had his baton. Since World War II, the only real leaders have been the established leaders."

Among these, of course, Jones counts Duke Ellington, "who is something all unto himself," and his own former boss, Count Basie.

"I traveled for fourteen years with a bunch of men, and there was not one fight," he said of his Basie days. "I came out of the band thinking that everybody was like that, and I soon found out differently. But to this day, I can't play with anybody who has hate in his heart."

It was with Basie, of course, that Jones established himself as "the man who plays like the wind" (a phrase coined by an admiring colleague), laying the foundation for perhaps the swingingest big band in jazz history, and, with his pioneering use of the ride cymbal, the hi-hat cymbals, and bass-drum "bombs," becoming one of the founding fathers of so-called modern jazz drumming. (In this context, Jones would like to correct the history hooks, pointing out that he joined Basie in 1934, not 1935, "and my birthday is October 7, not July 10.")

Looking back on his Basie days, Jones, who has no current plans for organizing a group of his own, said he would like to record some of the feature things he did with Basie, inasmuch as the band never got around to them in the studio.

Jones has traveled to Europe a number of times—most recently with the mammoth tour conducted by George Wein last summer ("musically, it was very good, but there was a certain lack of experience in logistics") — but has little regard for the often-encountered view of Europe as a Utopia for U.S. jazzmen:

"The kiddies say, 'Get out of the U.S.A.; they treat you like a man in Europe.’ But is the treatment of the Negro really better there? In America, you have all kinds of outlets. If you don't like one place, you can go somewhere else. But in Europe, you have to accept what they have to offer. If you can play, you can play anywhere."

He has no patience with people who claim that there is no future in music.

"Casals, Toscanini, Kreisler — they never rested on their laurels." he said. "And look at all the men in jazz who are still playing: Ellington, Armstrong, Hawkins — what if they had said forty years ago, 'There's no future in it; people don't know who I am'?"

Jones has some advice for aspiring players on a level different from the practical and materialistic: "To become a good jazz musician, you must try to hear and see things that are beautiful. Be like a sponge; absorb experience and play it. Music is therapy for people, and the most stimulating music there is is jazz. It is also the most spiritual of all musics—a delicate thing. You can't play it unless you have found yourself, and it takes time to find ourselves. An individual who plays music and a musician — those are two different things."

There's little doubt which of the two Jones is.”