Listening to Prestige 602: Roy Haynes

LISTEN TO ONE: Modette

 Elvin Jones once said:

 The greatest contribution jazz has made in music has been to replace the role of the conductor with a member of the ensemble who, instead of waving his arms to keep time and convey mood, is an active member of the musical statement. That person is the drummer. 

Jones did, of course, see the world through a drummer-centric prism, but that doesn't make him wrong. And in sessions led by a drummer, the argument is made forcefully. Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers set the tone for so much of Blue Note's

catalog. Max Roach and Tony Williams showed new directions in jazz through groups that they led. Across the Atlantic, expatriate Kenny Clarke showed how a drummer could conduct a large ensemble with the Clarke-Boland big band.

Roy Haynes was one of the most prolific drummers of his era, and his era is virtually an eon. He came on the jazz scene in the early 1940s, recording with Lester Young, then with Charlie Parker. As the 21st century entered its third decade, he was still playing, well into his 90s. I can never hear his name without hearing Sarah Vaughan, on her great 1950s recording of "Shulie a Bop," announcing her musicians, ending with "Roy (drumroll)....Haynes!" (drumroll). He is one of the most prolifically recorded drummers of all time, with 28 previous sessions on Prestige.

These include three previous sessions as leader. In 1958 he recorded We Three, a trio album with Paul Chambers and Phineas Newborn, Jr., and in 1960 he followed it with Just Us, this time with Richard Wyands on piano and Eddie de Haas on bass. While Elvin Jones's statement is meant to apply to the importance of the drummer in a large ensemble, you can hear it more plainly in a small group session where the drummer is the leader, and Haynes makes a powerful impression with these trio sessions.

In April of 1963, just five months before this session, he co-led a quartet featuring Booker Ervin. Ervin was really starting to establish himself as one of the major new jazz stars of the decade. Here he's back with the quartet format again, including worked with Ronnie Mathews and Larry Ridley, from the Ervin session, and Frank Strozier, who was heard once earlier on Prestige, playing alto sax in a group led by Booker Ervin. Here he plays flute as well as alto.

All three of these guys were young, near the beginning of their careers, and Haynes gives them all ample opportunity to shine. This includes the playing of their compositions--"Modette" and "La Palomeinding" were written by Strozier; "Go 'n' Git It" is by Mathews. All of them get the substantial benefit of Haynes's leadership on drums. Another Strozier composition, "Hag" (one of Haynes's nicknames) is included as part of a medley, unusual but not unheard of for a jazz album, and actually a frequent concluding number for Haynes's live sets, always including his own (with Richard Wyands) composition "Cymbalism," which had previously been on the Just Us album. Here they finish up with Sonny Rollins's jazz standard "Oleo."

"Cymbalism" becomes the title track for this LP, which was issued by New Jazz, and was the last album to be recorded for New Jazz, although several reissues followed it before the label was finally put to rest. Ozzie Cadena produced.