Elvin Jones with Dave Liebman, Steve Grossman and Gene Perla

Santa Claus came early this year! I was trying to take an extended break from blogging to attend to some other "doctoral" activities in my life these days, but someone posted this amazing clip on the Facebook and it was too good to pass up and not share with you all. Merry xmas!

Here's the seminal band of Elvin Jones with Dave Liebman, Steve Grossman and Gene Perla from a French television broadcast:



This band and, in particular, the album "Live at the Lighthouse" was very influential music to me as a student during the mid 90s in Montreal. I had a band with tenor players Al McLean and Sean Craig with Paul Shrofel on piano and Sage Reynolds on bass called "The Jazz Assault" (!) in which we attempted to perform all the music from that particular album and pay tribute to that great band. It was a great experience and any sense or feeling of musical hesitation was strictly forbidden! This was easily one of the most intense bands I've ever played in. In fact, after one of our performances at the Upstairs Jazz club one of our teachers (who shall remain nameless) remarked: "I feel like I've been raped by eighth-notes!" At the time we wore that as a badge of pride but now, I'm not so sure...haha.

So I'll be watching this clip a few times over the next few weeks....and if you are looking for some related Elvin Jones vocabulary to practice on the drums, head over to Ted Warren's blog Trap'd for a nice lesson on some classic Elvin triplet phrases.

Thanks again for stopping by and see you all in the New Year!