Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 235 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
It is always a sad time when we have to announce that one of our greatest musicians has joined the ancestors. This week it was jazz drummer extraordinaire Roy Haynes, who died on Nov. 12, 2024, at the age of 99.
Yet there is joy in savoring the gifts he bequeathed us for multiple decades. Born in 1925, and starting out at the age of 17, he drummed for more years than many of us have lived on this planet. While we offer condolences to his family, friends, and all those whose lives he intersected, I’d like to also simply say, “Thank you, Roy.”
FYI: Lest you think I am being disrespectful by referring to him as “Roy” in this tribute, not as “Haynes” or “Mr. Haynes,” it’s how I knew him when I was in my early 20s. I met him because my best friend, Jean Drakes was his Bajan cousin, and Roy used to take us out to jazz clubs. He would also bring a bunch of us younguns who were jazz fans to his house in Hollis, Queens, the neighborhood I lived in with my parents. He treated us to listening sessions of reel to reel tapes he had recorded of his early performances. I remember being in awe hearing him jam with Billie Holiday.
I want to also add here, that Roy’s passing was preceded by the death of alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson on Nov. 9, 2024, at the age of 98.
Tributes to Roy have rolled in—here are some of them:
Music critic and jazz writer Nate Chinen wrote for The New York Times:
Mr. Haynes was an irrepressible force who proudly remained both relevant and stylish over a career spanning seven decades, having had a hand in every major development in modern jazz, beginning in the bebop era. Remarkably, he did so without significant alterations to his style, which was characterized by a bracing clarity — Snap Crackle was the nickname bestowed on him in the 1950s — along with locomotive energy and a slippery but emphatic flow.
Few musicians ever worked with so broad an array of jazz legends. Mr. Haynes recorded with the quintessential swing-era tenor saxophonist Lester Young as well as the contemporary guitarist Pat Metheny. He was briefly but prominently associated with the singer Sarah Vaughan, and with some of bebop’s chief pioneers, notably the alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and the pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.
Chinen also wrote an additional piece for The Gig:
The first time I witnessed his rhythmic flux firsthand, in 1997, Roy was playing Bud’s music with Chick at Philly’s Theater of the Living Arts. (Also in the band: Wallace Roney, Kenny Garrett and Christian McBride.) By then I’d made a close study of dozens more Roy Haynes performances on record — some recent stuff, some not-so-recent, and even farther back. A new archival album had just dropped on Blue Note, titled One Night Stand: The Town Hall Concert 1947. I had it on heavy rotation, riveted by the authority a young Roy exuded behind both Lester Young and Sarah Vaughan. (Also on heavy rotation, then and now: recordings made at The Five Spot in 1958 by Thelonious Monk, whose spatial geometry worked a certain way with Roy on drums.)
After I moved to New York and began covering jazz for the Times, I had the opportunity to catch Haynes on a regular basis. I reviewed club dates and concerts, including the Sonny Rollins 80th birthday bash at the Beacon Theater (gift link), which famously gave us Rollins onstage with Ornette Coleman for the first time, among other delights. I wrote about Roy’s slyly named Fountain of Youth Band on multiple occasions, and attended his 85th birthday tribute at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
My deepest immersion came around the time of his final studio album, Roy-alty, in 2011. At the time, I was a busy presence in the pages of JazzTimes, and my editor, Evan Haga, asked me to profile Haynes, then a spry 86, for the November issue, with its customary focus on drummers. (Coincidentally, the cover story for that issue was a feature on Terri Lyne Carrington, whom I just wrote about here at The Gig.)
Hayes also released acclaimed albums as a bandleader, such as 1962’s Out of the Afternoon (with Roland Kirk), and formed his own band, the Hip Ensemble, in the late 1960s. The acclaimed drummer lived up to that band name, according to fellow jazz artist Pat Metheny, who toured with Haynes in the late 1980s: “Roy is the human manifestation of whatever it is that the word ‘hip’ was supposed to mean before it just became a word. Always in the moment, always in this time, eternal and classic and at the same time totally nonchalant about it.”
His career endured beyond the retirement of many of his contemporaries. His 2004 album Fountain of Youth and 2007’s Whereas earned him Grammy nominations, the latter when he was in his early 80s, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2012. In 2008, he presented the jazz radio station on the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. Until the Covid-19 pandemic, Haynes celebrated his birthday with an annual performance at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club – most recently at the age of 94. In an interview with Percussive Arts Society, he once said: “Maybe the secret of staying youthful is playing the drums. I know that performing makes me feel good, and it also makes me sleep well.”
Thomas Staudter detailed his beginnings for Downbeat:
Born and raised in the Roxbury section of Boston, Haynes grew up in a musical family. His parents, both from Barbados, were big music fans, and his father played the organ at home and sang in church. One of four brothers, Haynes learned a great deal from his oldest brother, Douglas, who was a musician and graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, later to work with Cab Calloway’s sister, Blanche, and her group the Joy Boys.
In his teens, Haynes started playing drums, and while in high school, he was gigging regularly with touring groups visiting Boston that needed someone in the drum chair. Many famed jazz musicians came from the Boston area, and it was just a matter of time before one of them recommended Haynes for the big leagues. In his case, alto saxophonist Charlie Holmes (formerly the principal oboist with the Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra) was playing with bandleader Luis Russell, and when a drummer was needed, Haynes got the call. He moved to New York City in 1945 at the age of 20. Russell’s ensemble was renowned across the country, having backed Louis Armstrong for a spell, and the experience of playing in a big band helped shape Haynes’s style of being able to match his playing to any tempo and timbre demands.
After working with Lester Young for two years, Haynes occupied the drum chair with the Charlie Parker Quintet from 1949 to 1952, and then enjoyed stretches with trombonist Kai Winding, tenor saxophonist Wardell Grey and Miles Davis during the trumpeter’s first years as a solo artist. There was a five-year stretch with Sarah Vaughan, a recording with Thelonious Monk, and in the 1960s, he played with John Coltrane Quartet as the personnel was still gelling; later, when regular drummer Elvin Jones needed a sub, Haynes was there.
“When you’re playing behind other people, it’s important to have a feeling of what the artist leading the gig likes,” said Haynes. “Much of that comes from being a careful listener. Sometimes you have to pick up that feeling right away on the job, then quickly translate it into the pulse, swing and sense of rhythm necessary to keep the music moving along.”
The National Endowment for the Arts issued a statement:
It is with great sadness that the National Endowment for the Arts acknowledges the passing of drummer Roy Haynes, recipient of a 1995 NEA Jazz Master fellowship. Haynes played the drums from the bebop days of the 1940s through the next seven decades of his career with the same restless energy.
“I don't analyze things. I don't try to,” he said in a 2014 interview with the NEA. “A lot of the things that happen I just keep on keeping on and don't try to figure them out. That's what I do on the bandstand, too, a lot of times.... Even if I have somebody new in my band, I don't sit down and tell them what I expect them to do, what I would like them to do.... We don't talk about it much, and it works.”
He remained fresh in his outlook and in his thirst for collaborating with younger artists and those who play in challenging styles, as is shown in his work with such disparate artists as Roland Kirk, Danilo Pérez, and Pat Metheny. He was also a favorite sideman for a number of artists because of his crisply distinctive drumming style. Thelonious Monk once described Haynes' drumming as "an eight ball right in the side pocket."
Give a listen to Roy telling the story of how he got started and his first gig with a big band:
Jazz Video Guy posted a longer 30-minute portion of the interview with Roy.
These video notes provide a partial transcript:
Roy Haynes remembers meeting Sonny Rollins, talks with Sonny about their first session, plays with Stan Getz and Gary Burton, and with Chick Corea and Miroslav Vitous. Also, an extended conversation with Nasar Abadey from the 2012 MidAtlantic Jazz Festival.There has been a long-standing misperception about Roy Haynes – one that the influential jazz drummer wants cleared up once and for all. “Everything you read about me says I was born in 1926, but that’s wrong. I was born in 1925, so I’m 73 now, not 72,” Haynes says, proudly. “When you’re younger, you want to stay young, but now that I’m older, I just want to be myself.”
Haynes has certainly been his own man in terms of his drumming. With solid roots in the swing style, his early gigs established him as a master of bebop playing, and as his career progressed, Haynes was able to adapt his playing to a variety of styles including avant-garde jazz and fusion, without ever losing his own identity. “My biggest influence was Jonathan – “Papa Jo” [Jones],” he says. “I also listened to Chick Webb a lot when I was a teenager, but I never got to hear him live; I just had the records. And then there were people like Shadow Wilson and Kenny Clarke, and of course Max [Roach] and Art [Blakey]. I tried to listen to everybody. I didn’t try to do what everyone else had done, but I listened. My ears were always open.”
Haynes own style was characterized by crispness and finesse, as well as a tremendous sense of drive. His drumming always sounded modern and very, very hip. Jack DeJohnette is one of many who credits Haynes as paving the way for the drumming of Elvin Jones and Tony Williams.“A lot of people describe my drumming as ‘snap, crackle’,” Haynes says. “I think George Shearing and Al McKibbon were the first to use that term in reference to my playing, and I can understand that. I never analyzed it, though. That was just a sound that I liked and felt comfortable with. I did a little bit of drum and bugle corps drumming in school, but I was never really a rudimental drummer, so I think my sound comes from my mind more than my hands.
“Every time I read something about myself it usually says ‘bebop.’ I recently had a review in The Village Voice about my week-long gig at the Village Vanguard, and they called me ‘hard bop.’ I would have liked it more if they had said ‘hard swing.’ I’m not always comfortable with those labels that people use. I’m just an old-time drummer who tries to play with feeling.”
Jeff Stockton, at All That Jazz, reviews the CD/video set that you should get your hands on (take a look at the tracklist):
This is the sort of expansive collection that in years past could have only been issued by the Smithsonian. This is not to say that this three-CD (plus one DVD) boxed set is a relic. It simply documents the legendary career of the drummer whose recorded output commenced in 1949 and continues to this day, a musical life that, by virtue of a lot of talent and a little good fortune, began with the Lester Young band and never paused to look back.
Charlie Parker. Bud Powell. Miles Davis. Sonny Rollins. Thelonious Monk. Eric Dolphy. Stan Getz. John Coltrane. Haynes played with all of them and all are represented in this compilation drawn from the catalogues of Savoy, Prestige, Blue Note, Verve, Impulse and more, recounting a thrilling and impressive history of jazz.
[...]
Through it all, Haynes has remained a driving force, growing into the role of elder statesman and earning his nickname "Snap Crackle" with distinctively shimmering cymbal work, a crisp snare and vital inventiveness all over his drum kit. It's hard to imagine a more useful, unifying and exciting primer for a person just getting interested in jazz music, especially with aspirations toward being a drummer.
Steve Futterman also reviews it for JazzTimes:
A Life in Time, three discs of music plus an accompanying DVD chronicling the nearly 60-year career of drummer Roy Haynes, sets a parlor game in motion: Name a major figure from the bebop and subsequent postbop era that Haynes hasn’t recorded with.
Even a partial listing of leaders represented on this set staggers. From the ’40s, Lester Young and Bud Powell; the ’50s, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan; the ’60s, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill and Chick Corea. Later decades find Haynes with Alice Coltrane, Gary Burton and Michel Petrucciani. (Another few discs touching on Haynes’ work with Art Farmer, Wardell Gray, Art Pepper and Pat Metheny, to mention just a few of the master players missing here, could easily form another volume of this well-deserved tribute.) And as the final tracks on disc three forcefully assert, the octogenarian Haynes is still a monster of a percussionist, a force of nature seemingly untouched by the ravages of time.
Then-host of “The Late Show” David Letterman had Roy on his show as a guest in 2011:
Drummerworld posted this extended solo from 1966:
And here’s one from 2010:
Here’s an hourlong video of Roy’s Quartet live in Germany in 2005:
Join me in the comments section below for more, and look forward to hearing the music you post as well.
Thank you Roy.
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