The oldest of the Jones brothers, Hank Jones
has been a supreme accompanist and underrated soloist. He's among the
most accomplished sight readers in jazz, and his flexibility and
sensitive style have kept him extremely busy cutting sessions and
working in various groups and styles ranging from swing to bebop. He's
worked with vocalists, played in big bands and done many solo, trio, and
combo dates. Born in 1918 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Jones moved with his family to the Detroit area while still a child, and studied piano early, listening carefully to Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, and Fats Waller. He began playing in the midwest at age 13, and worked in territory bands. Jones met Lucky Thompson in one of these groups, and Thompson invited him to New York in 1944 to work with Hot Lips Page at the Onyx Club. Jones worked for a while with John Kirby, Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Andy Kirk, and Billy Eckstine, then began touring in 1947. He worked with Jazz at the Philharmonic, then accompanied Ella Fitzgerald from 1948 to 1953. Jones also cut many sessions for Norman Granz's labels in the late '40s and early '50s, many with Charlie Parker. He worked and recorded in the '50s with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Lester Young, Milt Jackson, and Cannonball Adderley
before joining CBS' staff in 1959. He worked on such programs as The Ed
Sullivan Show and stayed with CBS until they disbanded the staff in
1976. He recorded several sessions with Savoy in the mid- and late '50s,
playing with Donald Byrd, Herbie Mann, Wendell Marshall, and Kenny Clarke, among others. He also recorded solo and quartet dates for Epic. His quartet with Osie Johnson, Barry Galbraith, and Milt Hinton
became one of New York's busiest during the early '60s, sometimes doing
three dates a day. They cut albums for Capitol and ABC in 1958, though Galbraith missed the ABC sessions. Jones continued recording at Capitol, Argo, and Impulse in the early '60s, at times working with his brother Elvin.
He made a host of recordings in the '70s. There were solo dates for
Trio and Galaxy, and trio sessions for Interface and Concord, among
others in the '70s. There were duo dates with Flanagan for Verve and Galaxy in the late '70s. Jones
served as pianist and conductor for the Broadway musical Ain't
Misbehavin in the late '70s. He also played in the Great Jazz Trio,
originally with Ron Carter and Tony Williams. (Buster Williams replaced Carter on the trio's first recording date.) Jones continued with the trio into the '80s, though Eddie Gomez and Al Foster later became his mates, and Jimmy Cobb replaced Foster in 1982. The trio also backed Art Farmer, Benny Golson, and Nancy Wilson. Jones was the resident pianist at the Cafe Ziegfeld in the early '80s, and toured Japan with George Duvivier and Sonny Stitt.
He kept his recording blitz going into the digital era. In 1989, he was
named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. In 2004, he was
awarded as an ASCAP Jazz Living Legend; five years later, he received a
National Medal of Arts; and in 2009, Jones
earned a Lifetime Achievement award at the Grammys. One year later, he
died in the Bronx while in hospice, just a few weeks after returning
from performance dates in Japan.
The oldest of the three Jones brothers (Hank, Thad and Elvin), Henry
“Hank” Jones was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi and grew up in Pontiac,
Michigan, where he studied piano at an early age and came under the
influence of Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. By the
age of 13 Jones was performing locally in Michigan and Ohio. While
playing with territory bands in Grand Rapids and Lansing he met Lucky
Thompson, who invited him to New York City in 1944 to work at the Onyx
Club with Hot Lips Page. In New York, Jones regularly listened to
leading bop musicians, and was inspired to master the new style. While
practicing and studying the music he worked with John Kirby, Howard
McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Andy Kirk, and Billy Eckstine. In autumn 1947
he began touring in Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts,
and from 1948 to 1953 he was accompanist for Ella Fitzgerald, developing
a harmonic facility of extraordinary taste and sophistication. During this period he also made several historically important recordings with Charlie Parker for Norman Granz's labels. After
several years as a freelance player, which included engagements with
Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, and recordings with such artists as Lester
Young, Milt Jackson, Cannonball Adderley, and Wes Montgomery, in 1959
Jones joined the staff of CBS where he stayed until the staff was
disbanded 17 years later. With his rare combination of talents as a
strong soloist, sensitive accompanist, and adept sight-reader, Jones has
always been in great demand for recording sessions of all kinds. By the
late 1970s his involvement as pianist and conductor with the Broadway
musical Ain't Misbehavin' (based on the music of Fats Waller) had
informed a wider audience of his unique qualities as a musician. During
the late 1970s and the 1980s Jones continued to record prolifically, as
an unaccompanied soloist, in duos with other pianists (including John Lewis
and Tommy Flanagan), and with various small ensembles, most notably the
Great Jazz Trio. The group took this name in 1976, by which time Jones
had already begun working at the Village Vanguard with its original
members, Ron Carter and Tony Williams (it was Buster Williams rather
than Carter, however, who took part in the trio's first recording
session in 1976); by 1980 Jones' sidemen were Eddie Gomez and Al Foster,
and in 1982 Jimmy Cobb replaced Foster. The trio has also recorded with
other all-star personnel, such as Art Farmer, Benny Golson, and Nancy
Wilson. In the early 1980s Jones held a residency as a solo pianist at
the Cafe Ziegfeld and made a tour of Japan, where he performed and
recorded with George Duvivier and Sonny Stitt.
The Jones
Boys, as they were called in the fifties and sixties, included the
pianist Hank Jones (born in 1918); the trumpeter, composer, and
bandleader Thad Jones (born in 1923, died in 1986); and the drummer
Elvin Jones (born in 1927). These three are, of course, brothers, who
rank with the most gifted, adventurous, and persuasive of all jazz
musicians. Thad was the cofounder of the bellwether Thad Jones–Mel Lewis
Orchestra, a fine composer (“A Child Is Born”; lyrics by Alec Wilder),
and a formidable trumpet player who never got his due. Elvin perfected
an extraordinary polyrhythmic attack during his years with John
Coltrane, and has become the most widely imitated modern drummer. And
Hank, who has been a kind of one-man foundation under jazz during the
past fifty years (a Jazz at the Philharmonic mainstay, an accompanist
for Ella Fitzgerald, a CBS staff musician, the pianist on a thousand
record dates), is widely regarded as the dean of jazz pianists. One
winter, for a short, delirious time, George Shearing was ensconced in
the Café Carlyle while Hank Jones was across the hall in the Bemelmans
Bar. The minute his first show was over, Shearing, a dazzling pianist
himself, would speed across the hall on the arm of his wife, Ellie, and
station himself at Jones’s right elbow, and remain until it was time to
go back to work. “Hank has been my mentor since 1947,” Shearing said
recently.
Jones first came to New York in 1944,
to join Hot Lips Page’s band, on Fifty-second Street. He was entering a
land of pianistic giants and near-giants. Art Tatum was God, and nearby
were Nat Cole, Teddy Wilson, and Marlowe Morris; and just coming up
were Bud Powell, Al Haig, Erroll Garner, and Thelonious Monk. Jones
listened, appropriating a little of Tatum, a little of Wilson and Cole,
and a little of Powell and Garner. The result is a quiet, lyrical,
attentive style, so subtle and technically assured as to be almost
self-effacing; you have to lean forward to catch Jones properly. He will
start two choruses of the blues with delicate single notes, placing
them in surprising, jarring places, either behind the beat or off to one
side—a path over a rocky place—and then play several dissonant chords;
return to single notes, this time letting them pour in Tatum runs, some
going up, some down; slip in more chords; and close the solo with a
chime sound. Unlike most modern pianists, Jones constantly uses his left
hand, issuing a carpet of tenths, little offbeat clusters, and
occasional patches of stride. Jones’s solos think, and they rest far above the florid, gothic roil that many jazz pianists have fallen into in the past twenty years.
Jones
is a crisp, compact, serious man who laughs a lot and invariably wears a
tie and jacket. He likes to talk about improvisation, and here are some
of the things he said recently: “You have to stay in shape, so I do
scales and exercises three or four hours a day, and then I practice
sight-reading. Of course, there is an extremely important prelude to
improvising. Every tune you play has its correct tempo, and you have to
find it. When you do, it practically plays itself. It’s not what you
think it should be, it’s what the tune demands. Improvisation is
instant composing. You try and conceive the totality in your mind of
what you’re going to do, and then flesh it out with an F-minor seventh,
or G-flat minor, or augmented fourth. You’re superimposing another line
on the original composition, and you think about the chord pattern—not
each chord—and you think about the melody. Music is colorless, but there
are shades of music—brightness, sombreness, any kind of mood. It’s
difficult not to repeat certain figures and patterns. When you do, it
means your concentration is not what it should be. Concentration is the
difference between the great players and the players who are not great.
Other pianists have told me that once in a rare while they play on a
level they have never reached before, and this makes me wonder if there
is a level of the subconscious that improvisers suddenly tap into. I
remember once I was working with Coleman Hawkins and J. J. Johnson and
Max Roach, and I was late. They were already on the bandstand, and that
must have shocked me, because I reached a level that I’ve only reached a
few times since.”
Jones spends as much time as
he can on a farm he bought some years ago in upstate New York, but he
still appears in New York, tours abroad, and makes at least one CD a
year. In the past five years he has recorded two stunning trio
albums—”Essence” (D.M.P.), with Ray Drummond on bass and Billy Higgins
on drums, and “Hank Jones: Upon Reflection” (Gitane), with George Mraz
on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. The second album contains ten Thad
Jones songs, and is full of marvellous Hank Jones single-note lines and
wild, whomping Elvin Jones brushwork. (Elvin is so strong that he once
hugged Zoot Sims and broke two of his ribs.) Jones has also recently
made two solo albums, “Hank Jones: Live at Maybeck Recital Hall”
(Concord) and “Hank Jones: Handful of Keys” (Gitane), a celebration of
Fats Waller, who occasionally passes through Jones’s playing. (He had
died just a year
before Jones arrived in New York.) The Waller is rather noncommittal,
but listen to the way Jones rebuilds “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and
“Blue Monk” on the Maybeck Hall CD. Best of all, though, is Jones’s
recent “Steal Away: Charlie Haden and Hank Jones” (Verve).
Haden,
the sometime avant-garde bassist, had heard Jones’s majestic 1977
recording of “It’s Me, O Lord” in the Smithsonian “Jazz Piano” box, and
he asked Jones if he would be interested in recording an album of
spirituals and hymns with him, and Jones said yes. There are seventeen
tunes, among them “It’s Me, O Lord,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve
Seen,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “I’ve Got a Robe, You Got a Robe,”
“We Shall Overcome,” and “Amazing Grace.” The album, as quiet as God’s
thoughts, is unique and irresistibly affecting. The two men work as one,
in unison or in harmony, and the recording becomes a subtle meditation
on the horrors of slavery as well as a celebration of the great songs
that came to be the slaves’ solace. The album is also, I suspect, a
celebration of Jones’s parents, both of whom were seven-days-a-week
churchgoers. (Jones still feels uneasy about performing on Sunday.) Most
of the numbers are played straight but with the harmonic and rhythmic
inflections that separate jazz from the rest of music. On “Wade in the
Water” and “Go Down, Moses,” however, Jones improvises delicately, and
on “We Shall Overcome” he pauses after a unison statement of the melody,
Haden begins to “walk,” and Jones suddenly lifts into four ringing
choruses of the blues, his single-note lines sparkling and his chords
bell-like. It’s an electric moment. ♦
Hank
Jones, whose self-effacing nature belied his stature as one of the most
respected jazz pianists of the postwar era, died on Sunday in the
Bronx. He was 91.
His
death, at Calvary Hospital Hospice, was announced by his longtime
manager, Jean-Pierre Leduc. Mr. Jones lived on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan and also had a home in Hartwick, N.Y.
Mr. Jones
spent much of his career in the background. For three and a half
decades he was primarily a sideman, most notably with Ella Fitzgerald;
for much of that time he also worked as a studio musician on radio and
television.
His
fellow musicians admired his imagination, his versatility and his
distinctive style, which blended the urbanity and rhythmic drive of the
Harlem stride pianists, the dexterity of Art Tatum and the harmonic
daring of bebop. (The pianist, composer and conductor André Previn once
called Mr. Jones his favorite pianist, “regardless of idiom.”)
But
unlike his younger brothers Thad, who played trumpet with Count Basie
and was later a co-leader of a celebrated big band, and Elvin, an
influential drummer who formed a successful combo after six years with
John Coltrane’s innovative quartet, Hank Jones seemed content for many
years to keep a low profile.
That
started changing around the time he turned 60. Riding a wave of renewed
interest in jazz piano that also transformed his close friend and
occasional duet partner Tommy Flanagan from a perpetual sideman to a
popular nightclub headliner, Mr. Jones began working and recording
regularly under his own name.
Reviewing a nightclub appearance in 1989, Peter Watrous of The New York Times praised Mr. Jones
as “an extraordinary musician” whose playing “resonates with jazz
history” and who “embodies the idea of grace under pressure, where
assurance and relaxation mask nearly impossible improvisations.”
Mr.
Jones further enhanced his reputation in the 1990s with a striking
series of recordings that placed his piano in a range of contexts —
including an album with a string quartet, a collaboration with a group
of West African musicians and a duet recital with the bassist Charlie
Haden devoted to spirituals and hymns.
Henry
W. Jones Jr. was born in Vicksburg, Miss., on July 31, 1918. One of 10
children, he grew up in Pontiac, Mich., near Detroit, where he started
studying piano at an early age and first performed professionally at 13.
He began playing jazz even though his father, a Baptist deacon,
disapproved.
Mr.
Jones worked with regional bands, mostly in Michigan and Ohio, before
moving to New York in 1944 to join the trumpeter and singer Hot Lips
Page’s group at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street.
Hank Jones at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Tompkins Square Park in 1995.Credit
Jack Vartoogian
He
was soon in great demand, working for well-known performers like the
saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and the singer Billy Eckstine. “People
heard me and said, ‘Well, this is not just a boy from the country —
maybe he knows a few chords,’ ” he told Ben Waltzer in a 2001 interview
for The Times. He abandoned the freelance life in late 1947 to become
Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist and held that job until 1953, occasionally
taking time out to record with Charlie Parker and others.
He
kept busy after leaving Fitzgerald. Among other activities, he began an
association with Benny Goodman that would last into the 1970s, and he
was a member of the last group Goodman’s swing-era rival Artie Shaw led
before retiring in 1954. But financial security beckoned, and in 1959 he
became a staff musician at CBS. He also participated in a celebrated
moment in presidential history when he accompanied Marilyn Monroe
as she sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy, who was
about to turn 45, during a Democratic Party fund-raiser at Madison
Square Garden in May 1962.
Mr.
Jones remained intermittently involved in jazz during his long tenure
at CBS, which ended when the network disbanded its music department in
the mid-’70s. He was a charter member of the big band formed by his
brother Thad and the drummer Mel Lewis in 1966, and he recorded a few
albums as a leader. More often, however, he was heard but not seen on
“The Ed Sullivan Show” and other television and radio programs.
“Most
of the time during those 15 or so years, I wasn’t playing the kind of
music I’d prefer to play,” Mr. Jones told Howard Mandel of Down Beat
magazine in 1994. “It may have slowed me down a bit. I would have been a
lot further down the road to where I want to be musically had I not
worked at CBS.” But, he explained, the work gave him “an economic base
for trying to build something.”
Once
free of his CBS obligations, Mr. Jones began quietly making a place for
himself in the jazz limelight. He teamed with the bassist Ron Carter
and the drummer Tony Williams, alumni of the Miles Davis Quintet, to
form the Great Jazz Trio in 1976. (The uncharacteristically immodest
name of the group, which changed bassists and drummers frequently over
the years, was not Mr. Jones’s idea.)
Two
years later he began a long run as the musical director and onstage
pianist for “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the Broadway revue built around the
music of Fats Waller, while also playing late-night solo sets at the
Cafe Ziegfeld in Midtown Manhattan.
By
the 1980s, Mr. Jones’s late-blooming career as a band leader was in
full swing. While he had always recorded prolifically — by one estimate
he can be heard on more than a thousand albums — for the first time he
concentrated on recording under his own name, which he continued to do well into the 21st century.
He is survived by his wife, Theodosia.
Mr. Jones was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1989. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2008 and a lifetime achievement Grammy Award
in 2009. And he continued working almost to the end. Laurel Gross, a
close friend, said he had toured Japan in February and had plans for a
European tour this spring until doctors advised against it.
Reaching for superlatives, critics often wrote that Mr. Jones had an exceptional touch. He himself was not so sure.
“I
never tried consciously to develop a ‘touch,’ ” he told The Detroit
Free Press in 1997. “What I tried to do was make whatever lines I played
flow evenly and fully and as smoothly as possible.
“I
think the way you practice has a lot to do with it,” he explained. “If
you practice scales religiously and practice each note firmly with equal
strength, certainly you’ll develop a certain smoothness. I used to
practice a lot. I still do when I’m at home.” Mr. Jones was 78 years old
at the time.
JAZZ NOTES
High praise for the low-profile Hank Jones
by Bill Beuttler April 8, 2005 Boston Globe
Pianist Hank Jones is the eldest and least well-known of the three great Jones brothers of jazz. The
late Elvin Jones, Hank's junior by nine years, revolutionized jazz
drumming in the early 1960s as a member of John Coltrane's legendary
quartet. Middle brother Thad, an arranger and composer who died in 1986,
made his name playing trumpet with Count Basie in the mid-1950s and
cofounding the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra a decade later. Now
86, Hank was smartly labeled ''the dean of jazz pianists" by the New
Yorker a few years ago. Still, his self-effacing manner, his genius as
an accompanist, and his deft interpretations of others' compositions
have conspired to keep his profile relatively low. But student
musicians in Harvard's various jazz ensembles are getting to know Jones
and his work quite well this week. They'll be joining Jones and
saxophonist Joe Lovano at Sanders Theatre on Sunday for ''Thanking Hank:
A Salute to the Piano Master," a concert culminating Jones's four-day
residency in Cambridge. (A ''Learning From Performers" discussion
with Jones at 3:30 p.m. today in the living room at Cabot House, 60
Linnaean St., Cambridge, is free and open to the public.) In
Jones, the students are encountering a musician unusually steeped in
jazz history, and one who remains very active. A notable recent triumph
was joining bassist George Mraz and drummer Paul Motian for Lovano's
''I'm All for You," an album of ballads that topped some critics' lists
as best jazz album of 2004. The project went over so well that the
quartet reassembled for a second CD, ''Joyful Encounter," due out from
Blue Note next month. Jones got his start playing piano in
Pontiac, Mich., third in line at the family piano behind two elder
sisters. His early influences included Fats Waller, Earl Hines, Teddy
Wilson, Nat King Cole, and Art Tatum. Elements of his style, such as his
subtle use of dynamics and the active, stride-like use of his left
hand, can be traced back to the heroes of his youth. After several
years of performing professionally in the Midwest, Jones moved to New
York in 1944, his friend and onetime bandmate Lucky Thompson having
gotten him a job with Hot Lips Page. But union rules required a waiting
period before he could begin working with Page's band. He spent the time
going out to clubs and hearing music, and adding to his list of piano
influences. ''I knew nothing of Bud Powell and [Thelonious] Monk,
people like that, until I arrived in New York," says Jones. ''One of the
places I went was the Three Deuces, where Charlie Parker was working
with Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, or Al Haig. They were playing down
there, and then you had Max Roach or Stan Levy playing drums. Fantastic
group. And playing a different style -- a very exciting, very cerebral
style. And it was difficult to play. You had to listen carefully to even
absorb it. A lot of people didn't like it, including some musicians."
That style, of course, was bebop, and Jones was
catching it right at its inception. It wasn't long before Jones was
playing bebop with Parker on Jazz at the Philharmonic tours. Those tours
led to other work, most notably several years as accompanist to Ella
Fitzgerald and some late-'50s stints touring with Benny Goodman. By
1959, though, Jones was ready to come off the road. He spent the next 17
years as staff pianist at CBS, where he worked on hit TV programs
including ''The Jackie Gleason Show" and ''The Ed Sullivan Show," did
two or three radio shows a week, and accompanied a steady stream of
auditioning singers. ''People used to say to me, incredulously,
'Why are you working at CBS? You could be out on the road making five
times as much money,' " Jones recalls. ''They forgot to mention that the
road has its drawbacks, too. You lose a lot of sleep, you do a lot of
traveling, you stay in sometimes less than four-star hotels, and eat
food that is not, let's say, the very best food possible. I considered
all that. I thought working at CBS was an advantage for me, because I
was able to build a modest financial base, and I could count on checks
coming every week." It wasn't until 1975 that Jones resumed
freelancing full time, and he's been doing it ever since. Highlights
among his recordings include a couple of trio dates with his brother
Elvin: ''Upon Reflection," an examination of 10 pieces by their brother
Thad, and last year's ''Someday My Prince Will Come." Then there's his copious sideman work. Hank Jones may not be a household name, but his fellow musicians revere him. ''I've
learned so much playing with him as far as spontaneous orchestration
for a quartet," says Lovano. ''He doesn't play a thousand choruses like a
lot of people. He's really clear and focused, and he could play two
choruses on any given tune and it's as deep as someone else might have
to play 10 [to accomplish]." Lovano continued: ''He's the ultimate
as far as leading a rhythm section and playing with the kind of
execution that feeds you and follows you at the same time. He doesn't
just play chords and rhythm. He feels the music so beautifully."
Special events:
This weekend is a busy one for campus-based concerts, with the proceeds
from two to help tsunami victims. At Berklee Performance Center
tonight, Russell Ferrante and Marcus Baylor of the Yellowjackets will
lead Berklee students through a performance of selections from the famed
fusion group's songbook. On Sunday, at the same place, Berklee faculty
will perform ''The Great American Songbook: The Music of Cole Porter,"
proceeds going to Mercy Corps' tsunami relief efforts. Also: a lengthy
list of local musicians will perform from 3 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at
Roxbury Community College's Media Arts Building (1234 Columbus Ave.) in a
benefit concert for Oxfam America. Hank Jones will perform
with guest Joe Lovano and the Harvard University jazz bands at "Thanking
Hank: A Salute to the Piano Master" on Sunday at 7 p.m. at Sanders
Theatre. Tickets: $15 ($8, students and seniors). Call 617-496-2222.
Hank Jones says he’s lost a couple of inches in the length of his
fingers over the years. A lot of “rock ‘n’ roll dates, pounding the
keys to play triplets” were the cause, he suggests. Two inches sounds
like a lot-even for too many “rock ‘n’ roll dates”-but it hovers on the
edge of reason when one takes into account the fact that Jones
celebrated his 90th birthday in July 2008. Shrinkage happens.
But when he reaches out for a handshake, and you feel your own hand-not
exactly small-completely enveloped by his, you can only marvel at what
his paws must have been like, say, a half-century ago. At the moment,
they look as though they could cover the span of a major tenth on the
keyboard. (For non piano-playing readers, that’s a reach from a C to the
E beyond the next C; 10 white notes, in other words.)
Jones, a tall, slender, confident-looking man with an elegant manner,
intense eyes and a face on which history is written in every line,
simply smiles when the keyboard span of his fingers is mentioned.
“Wouldn’t matter how far you could reach if you didn’t have anything to say, would it?” he says with a smile.
Hard to argue with that. And it’s equally impossible to ask if Jones
himself has something to say. The truth is he’s had a lot to say
musically, reaching back to the ’40s, with his feather-soft touch,
masterful harmonies and irresistible rhythmic lift. And he’s been
having, in addition, something of a creative renaissance since 1975,
when he wrapped up a 17-year stint as a staff pianist at CBS. Among the
highlights, his “Great Jazz Trio” recordings, with players ranging from
Ron Carter and Tony Williams to Jimmy Cobb and Christian McBride, as
well as duo piano outings with John Lewis and Tommy Flanagan. He’s also
recorded hymns with Charlie Haden, standards with singer Roberta
Gambarini, collaborated with a Malian Mandinka band, and released
numerous solo albums. His recent duet partnership with saxophonist Joe
Lovano is a stunning and utterly timeless interfacing of musical
generations. And, as a respected, in-demand jazz rhythm section sideman,
he’s been at the top of the A-list seemingly forever. His indelible
contributions to the music have earned him an NEA Jazz Master title in
1989 and a 2008 National Medal of the Arts.
Jones was in L.A. a couple of times last year, first for a gig at UCLA
with bassist John Clayton and drummer Joe La Barbera and a few months
later for a birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl with Gerald
Wilson, also celebrating his 90th. While he was in town for the latter
date, JazzTimes joined him in his suite at the landmark Hollywood
Roosevelt Hotel for a freewheeling conversation about the then and now
of his nine remarkable decades, a conversation in which he was as
articulate and illuminating in his verbal expressiveness as he is with
his music.
He made it clear, up front, in his characteristically whimsical fashion,
that he wasn’t viewing the birthday as a particularly momentous date.
When asked how he felt about turning 90, he replied, in a deep voice,
“You know something? I don’t feel a day over 89.”
Then, with a chuckle, he added, “I had to make that sound dramatic.
Because actually, you don’t feel any different. If you’re catching a
cold when you’re 89, you’re still going to be catching a cold when
you’re 90.”
Whimsy aside, Jones was always spot-on serious when we talked about
music, especially when the conversation veered, as it frequently did,
toward the subject of creativity. Listening to him, fascinated by his
physical and intellectual vigor, I was reminded of the utter
unpredictability of the creative lifespan, of the manner in which it can
arc through relatively short, star-crossed periods. Think Charlie
Christian, Jimmy Blanton and Clifford Brown, Janis Joplin and James
Dean.
And of how, far more rarely, it can reach across nearly a century. Think
of Benny Carter, who was still a master in his early 90s, of Picasso,
at 90, producing works anticipating neo-expressionism, of Verdi
composing “Falstaff” when he was 80.
Add Jones to that second list. He was born in Vicksburg, Miss., to
musical parents. His father played blues guitar and was a Baptist church
deacon; his mother sang and introduced her children to sounds ranging
from Sunday afternoon gospel songs and jazz pianists such as Fats Waller
and Earl Hines to radio broadcasts by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
His lengthy résumé begins in Pontiac, Mich., where his parents moved in
the early ’20s, and where he was raised as the eldest male in a family
that ultimately produced two other iconic jazz figures:
trumpeter/arranger Thad and drummer Elvin. Ironically, although the
senior member of that remarkable triumvirate has been called a pianists’
pianist for most of his career, he was not a particularly avid
beginner.
“I had classical lessons first,” he says. “But I wasn’t much for
practicing. They always had to force me, tell me the teacher was going
to give me a hard time.”
He soon got past the oppositional phase, however. By the time Jones was
in his teens, he was already working professionally with big territory
bands from Detroit. In 1944, he made the move to New York City with Hot
Lips Page, performing with Jazz at the Philharmonic in the late ’40s.
Gigs with Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman,
Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and dozens of others followed, thoroughly
establishing his street cred as a pianist who could adapt to almost any
kind of musical setting.
His younger brothers took different paths, aided by the advance word that Jones was putting out.
“Believe me, they were well known in New York before they got there,” he
said. “I made sure of that. I told everybody about them. And they lived
up to all the advance notices I gave them.”
But even Hank was surprised by their rapid professional progress. “I
knew they were both talented,” he continued. “But I had no idea they
would get to the professional level as fast as they did. And then they
just got better and better and better.”
His pride in both, as paternal as it is fraternal, glowed in his
recollections of the accomplishments of each brother: Thad, five years
younger, and Elvin, nine years younger.
“Thad was writing arrangements when he was 15 years old,” said Jones.
“And he was writing for acts like Butterbeans and Susie-people like
that, comedy acts. And he was not using a score. He was just writing out
the instrumental parts individually. Add to that, he was an excellent
player, too, one of the finest trumpet players around. You listen to
some of those recordings, and you hear that he could play with anyone.
He just didn’t play as often as I thought he should with that big band.
He gave the solos to everybody else. But he was the genius. If there’s
such a thing as an authentic genius, Thad was it.”
His praise for his youngest brother is equally laudatory. “Elvin
developed that style that he had all by himself,” he continued. “And his
style was very musical. A lot of people think drums aren’t musical, but
I think drums can be very musical. The more sensitive a drummer is, the
more sensitive his approach is. It’s not just about playing a beat,
it’s about playing different shades of volume, intensity, varying the
beat. All those levels of intensity in Elvin’s playing were to enhance
the music, to enhance the soloist. When he was playing drums behind me
it made me feel just that much better. I didn’t have to worry about what
the drummer was doing behind me. Takes a load off your mind.”
Then why did the Jones brothers perform together so rarely? They made only a few recordings together.
“Good question,” said Jones. “Our paths just didn’t cross much. We all
progressed, but in different directions. Thad had the big band, I was
doing stuff at CBS and Elvin was doing his own thing.
“But one thing stands out clearly,” he added, pausing for dramatic
effect before continuing. “I wasn’t good enough to play with those
guys.”
“You’re kidding,” I replied, not entirely sure that he was.
“Well, sure,” said Jones, once again adding a kicker. “But it’s true. I wasn’t,” he said, before erupting into laughter.
Given his age, Jones has been present as a younger or older contemporary
to a large number of jazz history’s finest pianists. He lists Art
Tatum, Teddy Wilson and Fats Waller as primary influences, with Tatum
serving as a near-mythological model.
“He was the first one to use all those harmonic devices that later guys
like Dizzy and Charlie used,” said Jones. “It sounded new to people who
heard it for the first time. But it wasn’t new to someone who’d listened
to Art Tatum. Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff-that’s what he was,
all rolled into one. He had a great impact on me, especially
harmonically. I couldn’t play lyrically the way he did-few people
could-so I just worked to adopt his harmonic ideas.”
Oscar Peterson, he suggested, probably came closer, but with several provisos.
“In some respects, Oscar was very close to Tatum. He had the required
technique to do it. And he admired Tatum, as we all did. But nobody
played exactly like Tatum. We have to establish that he was in a class
by himself. Players like Oscar, who play a fine piano, actually play a
style that’s reminiscent sometimes of Tatum, but not completely. And
Oscar would be the first one to acknowledge that.”
Jones’ view of his post-WWII contemporaries is, like his playing,
precise, to the point and unaffected by ego. When asked if he heard
anything in Thelonious Monk that became incorporated into his own
playing, he paused thoughtfully for a moment before responding with a
shrug.
“Sure. Some things,” he said. “But Monk had such a unique harmonic style
that everything he did was pretty much his own. If anybody else tries
to do what he did, it sounds unnatural.”
Queried about Bud Powell, he turned to a theme that courses through our
conversation, his belief in the piano as a complete instrument, fully
capable of melody, harmony, rhythm, percussion and more.
“Bud was unique,” Jones explained, “in that he played-you should pardon
the expression-in the bebop style. But he played it as a horn player
would play it. His playing was probably closer to Charlie Parker than it
was to another pianist.”
And, when, in a sudden shift of gears, Lennie Tristano’s name came up,
Jones touched upon another important personal theme, his belief in the
specificity of the jazz art.
“He was a great technician,” says Jones, “made some wonderful records.
But I didn’t think of them as jazz. They were jazz-related, but not true
jazz.”
How, then, does he define true jazz?
“Well,” he replied, a modest look crossing his face, “bear in mind this
is just my opinion. But to me, if it’s going to be pure jazz then it has
to have what are commonly considered to be jazz figures. Syncopation,
things like that … harmonizations. It doesn’t have to necessarily have a
blues style, although players like Charlie Parker played blues
wonderfully, but a feeling for the blues. And it’s not all about the
notes. It’s about what you do with them. You know, you can have great
technique, and still not be a great jazz player. Now, I don’t want to be
dogmatic. There are a lot of different ways to play jazz. But that’s my
opinion of it.”
At least two of those different ways were embodied in the evolution from
swing to bebop that was taking place when Jones arrived in New York
City in the ’40s. Working with leaders such as Page, Hawkins, Andy Kirk
and Billy Eckstine; as a regular participant with Norman Granz’s “Jazz
at the Philharmonic” concerts; and as both a player and a habitué in the
52nd Street clubs that were the musical frontline of the decade, Jones
was present, in the trenches, at one of the key transitional periods in
jazz history.
In his typically modest manner, however, he is reluctant to describe
himself as a bopper. “I really don’t see myself as a bebop player,” he
said. “Not a complete bebop player, like Bud Powell was. I came to New
York City at the end of when it began happening on 52nd Street. That’s
when I began listening to Parker, Gillespie, Monk.”
But Jones seemed, almost from the beginning, to be destined for
versatility, already capable of playing in a wide variety of settings by
the time he got to the Apple. “I could adapt to things,” he explained,
“I guess because I used to listen very carefully to what was going on. I
had to pay close attention because I was so often in settings where I
wasn’t familiar with what was happening.
“The funny thing is, I didn’t start out to be versatile,” he said. “That
was just an accident. They’d call me to do something and I’d say,
‘Well, I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try.’ Trial and error. That
fits it. And just a little bit of luck involved in everything.”
A little bit of “luck” has been a charm for Jones personally as well as
professionally. In September 2006, an attack of shingles entered his
left eye and infected fluid around his brain. In February 2007, a
massive heart attack resulted in quadruple bypass surgery. Yet he still
has the vigorous look of a man decades younger, and his approach to his
playing has all the earmarks of a musician avidly romancing his muse.
“I don’t think I’ve done my best yet,” said Jones. “That’s a goal that
I’m working toward, and I haven’t gotten there yet. It’s like the story,
and it’s true, about the guy who was interviewing George Shearing, and
asked George if he’d been blind all his life. And George answered, ‘Not
yet.’ So, no, I haven’t done my best yet.
“You know,” he added, his dark eyes strong and focused, beaming 90 years
of accumulated wisdom, “what I enjoy the most is when I don’t make too
many mistakes. Because every time you sit down at the piano you’re
challenging yourself. But it’s not a competition. What you’re doing is
you’re trying to make each performance be better than the last one.
That’s what you work for. That’s what you hope for, to make each
performance better than the last one.
“Not perfection,” Jones concluded, with a wry smile. “Because I don’t
believe there is such a thing as perfect. Perfection is something you
strive for that you never actually reach. It’s a place where you and the
instrument become one-your mind, your fingers, your body. I’m still
trying to reach that level.” https://pitchfork.com/news/38822-rip-jazz-pianist-hank-jones/
Jones grew up outside Detroit with his two younger brothers, fellow future jazz greats Thad and Elvin. As the Times
reports, in 1944, Jones moved to New York to play with singer/trumpeter
Hot Lips Page. In the decades that followed, Jones worked with many
great jazz figures, including Billy Eckstine, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman,
Charlie Haden, and Charlie Parker. He served as Ella Fitzgerald's
accompanist for several years, and was on staff at CBS from the late 50s
to the mid-70s. Jones posed in the famous 1958 photo ["A Great Day in
Harlem"]
NEW YORK - CIRCA 1970: Jazz Pianist Henry
'Hank' Jones poses for a portrait circa 1970 in New York City, New York.
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Jazz pianist and composer Hank Jones, whose 70-year career included a stint as Ella Fitzgerald's
pianist and Marilyn Monroe's accompanist when she sang "Happy Birthday"
to President John F. Kennedy, has died, his manager said Monday. He was
91.
Jones, who won a Grammy lifetime achievement award last
year and received the National Medal of Arts from President George W.
Bush in 2008, died Sunday night at a New York hospital after a brief
illness, Jean-Pierre Leduc said. A tireless musician who
performed his blend of swing and bebop until the end, Jones came from a
family of jazz musicians who included brothers Thad, a trumpeter,
composer and arranger, and Elvin, a drummer known for the polyrhythmic
beat that propelled John Coltrane's classic quartet.
Saxophonist Joe Lovano, with whom Jones made several CDs when he was an
octogenarian, including the Grammy-nominated "Kids: Live at Dizzy's Club
Coca-Cola" (2007), called Jones "one of the master musicians in the
history of jazz." "He was the consummate accompanist and played
with a very free flowing approach ... His sound, his touch, his ideas
were all about feeling," Lovano said. Throughout his career,
Jones was respected by his fellow musicians for his elegant touch,
melodic sensitivity and stylistic versatility, making hundreds of
recordings, including more than 60 as a leader. He played with some of
the biggest names in jazz, including Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Wes
Montgomery, Nancy Wilson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Coltrane.
According to his website, Jones' one regret was that he didn't record
more often with his late brothers. But he did manage to record "The
Great Trio Collaboration" with Elvin before his brother died in 2004. He
was a charter member of the big band that brother Thad co-led with
drummer Mel Lewis beginning in the mid-'60s at New York's Village
Vanguard jazz club. Jones "lived and breathed music and was never far from a keyboard, even at the end," Leduc said.
"His incredible burst of productivity - concerts, recordings,
fundraisers, clinics - these last few years was unprecedented and truly
remarkable. He had gigs planned through next year" and was scheduled to
play at the Birdland jazz club in New York next week, he added.
At last year's Jazz Awards, Jones was voted pianist of the year by the
Jazz Journalists Association among a crowded field of nominees that
included such distinguished veterans as Kenny Barron, Cecil Taylor,
Ahmad Jamal and Keith Jarrett and newer faces like Jason Moran and
Matthew Shipp. With characteristic modesty, Jones declared it "should be
a group award." "This to me is an honor and also it's a great
incentive to me to do better," Jones said in accepting the honor. "It's
not the end of things, it's the end of the beginning for me." Jazz pianist-turned-impresario George Wein, who founded the Newport Jazz Festival, called Jones "an inspiration to all of us.
"Maybe by the time I'm his age, I'll know a few changes that he plays
on the piano," joked the 83-year-old Wein at the awards ceremony.
Jones' contemporary, saxophonist James Moody, who recorded "Our
Delight" with the pianist, said, "If someone threw ink at a piece of
paper, Hank could play it." In 1989, the National Endowment for the Arts named Jones as a Jazz Master, the nation's highest honor in jazz. Jones "leaves behind an amazing legacy as both a leader and a sideman," NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said of his death.
Born in Vicksburg, Miss., and raised in Pontiac, Mich., near Detroit,
he was influenced by such legendary pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson
and Nat King Cole. Lovano said Jones knew them all, as well as Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. "He was on the scene with them in New York," he said. "He had his own touch and approach from those relationships."
He began performing at the age of 13, playing with territory bands that
toured Michigan and Ohio. During those tours he met saxophonist Lucky
Thompson, who helped him land a job in trumpeter Hot Lips Page's band in
1944. After moving to New York in 1943, Jones embraced bebop
and toured with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1947-51. As
part of the ensemble, he became Fitzgerald's pianist, touring with her
from 1948-53. In 1962, he accompanied Monroe on the piano when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. In a 2005 interview on National Public Radio, he described that day.
"She did 16 bars: eight bars of 'Happy Birthday to You' and eight bars
of 'Thanks for the Memories,'" he said. "So in 16 bars, we rehearsed
eight hours. ... She was very nervous and upset. She wasn't used to that
kind of thing. And, I guess, who wouldn't be nervous singing "Happy
Birthday" to the president?" He also worked with such
consummate musicians as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Milt Jackson and
Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. He joined CBS as studio pianist, a
position he held for 17 years, performing on the Ed Sullivan Show and
others. His versatility also landed him gigs in Broadway stage
bands, including a long-running stint as the pianist and conductor for
"Ain't Misbehavin'," the hit 1970s musical revue based on songs by
pianist Thomas "Fats" Waller.
Born in 1918, Hank Jones was one of five musical siblings — his sisters studied piano, while brothers Thad (trumpeter, composer) and Elvin
(drummer) were also celebrated jazzmen. By age 13, Hank Jones was
playing locally in Pontiac, Mich., and began working in New York in the
mid-'40s. He worked as Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist from 1948 to 1953, and recorded with Charlie Parker
at this time. Jones was the house pianist at the Savoy label, where he
worked with a long list of other greats, and served as the staff pianist
at CBS Studios from 1959-75. In the public mind, Jones' most
memorable date was as the accompanist for Marilyn Monroe when she sang
"Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at John F. Kennedy's 45th-birthday
celebration. In his later career, Jones continued to work with A-list
figures in the jazz world, such as Diana Krall and Christian McBride. Hank Jones died earlier this year; he was 91. Host Marian McPartland remembers Hank Jones on an earlier Piano Jazz
episode: "He was such a master of the piano, and could do just about
anything," McPartland says. "He knew every tune and such interesting
harmonies. Playing duets with him was a great joy."
'Keep The Melody Intact' In this 2009 session with guest host Bill Charlap, Jones returns to the program 30 years after his first appearance for a set of tunes spanning his career. "Keep the melody intact," Jones says flatly. "You can do all kinds of things with the harmonies, but the melody must remain." He
credits arranger, composer and clarinetist Bill Stegmeyer with giving
him great insight into the kinds of harmonies that Jones still uses in
this session. And those trademark harmonies emerge with an easy grace on
Stegmeyer's "Lonely Woman." Jones brings up another point
about his playing, one true to all great jazz musicians: "You're only at
your best when you're relaxed." That relaxed feeling shines through in
duets of "Oh, Look at Me Now" and "Lotus Blossom." The latter tune,
penned by Billy Strayhorn,
conjures the late-night environs of the jazz world, but Jones takes the
session to Sunday morning with his tender rendition of "Lord, I Want to
Be a Christian," of which he says, "I grew up in the church, and it's
always been a part of my life." Strayhorn's songs and arrangements were a cornerstone of Duke Ellington's
sound, and Charlap follows with Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady." He
plays the classic tune with a light, swinging touch, punctuating phrases
with abbreviated bass notes from the left hand. At the close of the
tune, the great Hank Jones says in unequivocal tones, "Superb! Superb!
Superb!" That would be a great way to describe this special
session. It's also a fitting description of Jones' own long, illustrious
career in jazz. This session originally ran on July 31, 2009.
Hank Jones performs at the first day of the North Sea Jazz Festival on
July 10, 2009 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Photograph: Paul
Bergen/Redferns
The great jazz drummer Elvin Jones, asked by JazzUK magazine in 2001
how it felt to be still playing full-on jazz in his 70s, simply pointed
to the example of his older brother. The pianist Hank Jones, the
first-born of the three jazz-playing Jones brothers, was 83 at the time
and still playing with the same benign determination that had
distinguished his work since the 1940s. A pianist of graceful lyricism, lightness of touch, and softness of
chordal shading, Jones bridged the urbane sophistication of the swing
era and the more ambiguous harmonies and zigzagging melodies of bebop.
But bop's haste and mistrust of silences never diverted him from
sounding notes as if concerned for their wellbeing once they left his
hands. He phrased improvisations like compositions, and seemed to be in
love with all his work, and incapable of making an ugly sound if he
tried. Jones, who has died aged 91, was also an underrated composer, whose
work belatedly came to be covered by other jazz musicians (the US
pianist Geoffrey Keezer devoted an album to his pieces as recently as
2003) and his sensitivity made him an excellent accompanist,
particularly for singers. Ella Fitzgerald
was Jones's principal employer for six years from the 1940s into the
50s. In 1962, he was the accompanist to Marilyn Monroe as she sang Happy
Birthday to President John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in New
York. He was born Henry Jones in Vicksburg, Mississippi. In his early
childhood the family moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where his trumpeter
brother Thad and drummer brother Elvin were born – there would be 10
siblings in all. Hank was given piano lessons, and in his teens became
attracted to the sounds of such stride-derived pianists as Fats Waller
and Teddy Wilson, the trumpet-line mimicry adopted by Louis Armstrong's
partner Earl Hines, and the blizzard of sound unleashed by the
technically dazzling Art Tatum. Hank was good enough to perform in local Michigan bands by the age of
13, and remained working professionally in the area through the 30s,
eventually appearing in swing groups that included Thad on trumpet. The
older Jones steadily expanded his patch to the touring "territory bands"
around Grand Rapids, during which period he met the saxophonist Lucky
Thompson. In 1944, Jones accompanied Thompson to New York, and a new
musical world.
The
New York scene of the mid-40s placed the jazz music of almost every era
and persuasion side by side on such jazz boulevards as 52nd Street.
Jones eagerly took it all in, and continued to freelance, primarily as a
swing performer, with such high-profile, musically advanced orchestras
as Andy Kirk's, John Kirby's and the singer Billy Eckstine's. But he was
fascinated by the intricacies of bebop, and studied the art closely.
The saxophonist Coleman Hawkins ran a hybrid swing/bop outfit in the
mid-40s, and Jones recorded with it in 1946 and 1947. In 1947, he was hired to accompany Fitzgerald, at a point in the
singer's career when she had weathered difficult times and was beginning
to mature as an artist, and also starting to command some of the
biggest fees in the business. Tuning his ear to Fitzgerald's speed of
thought and vocal elasticity, Jones became the quintessential
accompanist, developing an aptitude for spontaneous shading, colouration
and enhancement of the music around him that bordered on musical
witchcraft. Having appeared with Fitzgerald on the impresario Norman Granz's globetrotting Jazz
at the Philharmonic package tours, Jones became a participant in other
Granz projects, including recordings in the early 50s with Charlie
Parker. He also worked with Duke Ellington's former trombonist Tyree
Glenn and with the clarinettist Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five in 1953, and
made regular appearances at the Birdland club in New York. With the
pioneering bebop drummer Kenny Clarke, Jones worked regularly as a
studio player for Savoy Records, briefly rejoined Hawkins in 1955, and
toured with Benny Goodman. Towards the end of the decade, he appeared with Glenn in bands led by
the trombonist that sometimes featured a fitfully poetic Lester Young.
His brother Elvin appeared with Jones in a 1958 edition of the Glenn
ensemble, and Jones recorded with the fast-rising Cannonball Adderley in
the same year. Jones went to work on the studio staff of CBS records in 1959 – often
playing on the Ed Sullivan Show – and remained with the company for 17
years. But he continued to work the jazz circuit when he could.
Throughout the 70s, he performed regularly with Goodman, then became
pianist and conductor on the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin'. He
appears on hundreds of recordings, a testament to his ability to fit in
at the drop of a hat, and lift everyone else's game, while still adding a
uniquely identifiable chemistry of his own. From
the late 70s on, he often played unaccompanied, or duetted with
likemindedly subtle and understated pianists such as John Lewis and
Tommy Flanagan. Jones also performed with an ensemble that came to be
known as the Great Jazz Trio – a deservedly hyperbolic name for a group
born at the Village Vanguard in 1976 and initially starring Jones
alongside the former Miles Davis bass and drums colossi Ron Carter and
Tony Williams. The bassists Eddie Gomez and Dave Holland, and drummers
Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb and Billy Higgins, appeared in later editions. Jones was popular all over the world, but had a particular following
in Japan, a country he came to visit regularly, becoming a guest
professor at the Osaka College of Music from 1992. He appeared at the
world's great jazz festivals well into his later years, and sustained a
busy programme of club dates into his 80s. In 1989, Jones was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz
Master, and that year Holland and the saxophonist and clarinettist Ken
Peplowski contributed to one of his most mellow and captivating
recordings, the Concord label's Lazy Afternoon. But Upon Reflection,
made in 1993 and dedicated to his late brother Thad, and featuring Elvin
on drums, laid to rest any lingering suspicions that Hank put
fastidious grace above profound emotion. Jones remained at the top of his game until the last months of his
life, touring Japan in February this year. A superb live duo album,
Kids, was released in 2007, featuring him in remarkably free dialogue
with the saxophonist Joe Lovano, and last year he was awarded a lifetime
Grammy for services to music. He is survived by his wife, Theodosia. • Henry "Hank" Jones, jazz pianist, born 31 July 1918; died 16 May 2010
According to Hank Jones, "when you listen to a pianist, each note should
have an identity, each note should have a soul of its own." For nearly
six decades Jones has taken his own words to heart, playing every one of
his notes with a unique and deeply personal style.
Listen to pianists Sir Roland Hanna and Billy Taylor talk about Jones' personal approach to the piano
Born on July 31, 1918 in Vicksburg, Miss., Jones grew up in Pontiac,
Michigan in a family rich with musical talent. Actively encouraged to
play music by their parents were oldest son Hank, his younger brother,
cornetist band leader, composer and arranger Thad Jones, and the baby of
the family, drummer Elvin Jones, the polyrhythmic force behind John
Coltrane's classic quartet.
Jones' earliest influence was pianist Fats Waller (left), who
played in the bouncy ragtime stride piano style. During junior high
school, Jones used to listen to Fats Waller records on the radio before
he left for school and Waller's insistent melodies and driving beat had
Jones dancing all the way to class.
Listen to Hank recall how he used to listen to Fats Waller on the radio
Jones also idolized Earl "Fatha" Hines and the great Teddy Wilson,
spinning their sides as a teenager, emulating their styles. While these
artists seldom came through Pontiac, he did see many lesser-known
pianists perform. Often these performers played by ear, not having had
formal training. By watching and listening to them, he acquired an early
understanding of improvisation, a technique he himself would come to
master.
Jones' greatest influence was the legendary Art Tatum (left).
Hank was in awe of Tatum's energy, creativity, and flawless technique.
Later, as a young professional in his early 20's, Jones was able to meet
Tatum and watch him through hours of practice sessions.
I am the sum total of everything that I have experienced musically.
-- Hank Jones
Always open to new approaches to music, Jones was one of the first
pianists to take on the language of bebop. Many pianists were leery of
making the transition to this "radical" movement in jazz. Hank saw the
new style as an opportunity to enhance his own playing, and did so with
great success. He recorded with bebop phenomenon Charlie Parker, and
fast became an influential presence on the emerging bebop scene.
Listen to Hank talk about his immersion into bebop
Commercial success eluded Jones during most of his career -- some
attribute this to his own modesty and self-effacing manner. During the
1950s, Jones kept busy as a freelancing accompanist,
recording with Ella Fitzgerald and playing on the Jazz at the
Philharmonic tour with Parker and Roy Eldridge. He later became the
staff pianist for CBS Television, backing guests like Frank Sinatra on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Listen to Hank talk about working on The Ed Sullivan Show
Though he hasn't achieved great fame, Hank Jones continues to leave his
mark on jazz. His dynamic and diverse recordings reinterpret jazz in
all of its varieties. But he also continues to expand his musical
palette. In recent years he has collaborated with a West African group,
fusing American jazz with African traditional folk music. Jones once
again demonstrates his remarkable ability to adapt to any musical
setting and shine.
Listen to Hank talk about his constant strive for excellence
THE
MUSIC OF HANK JONES: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF
RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS
WITH HANK JONES:
Browse the NPR Jazz Web site -- NPRJazz.org
