Jo Jones!

Papa Jo Jones: The Man Who Played Like the Wind

A pair of pieces featuring the great Jo Jones today.

First up, a brilliantly epic version of Caravan featuring Jo Jones with Mary Lou Williams circa. 1978. 

I attended a wonderful listening session with Toronto clarinetist Virginia MacDonald last week at the JazzYYC Tune In - Tune Up conference in Calgary, AB. Virginia played a lot of great music for us by many overlooked female jazz artists and Mary Lou Williams featured prominently in her presentation. And of course this eventually led me down a bit of a rabbit hole and I eventually discovered the clip you see below:

Toronto jazz drummer Morgan Childs also shared this Jazz at the Philharmonic concert filmed in the Netherlands circa. 1957 featuring the Oscar Peterson trio, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, Stuff Smith and others....with Jo Jones behind the drums, who is swinging the band and audience into a frenzy, all with a big smile on his face!

Take a listen to this entire concert and watch the Master in action:

And a few more things worthy of checking out:

- An older 2020 piece from Vinnie Sperrazza's fine and always insightful blog entitled Listen to Jo Jones

- And Jazz Profiles offers this extensive feature on Jo Jones' musical career

So yes, now go listen to Jo Jones!