Philly Joe Jones (1980) by Larry Kart

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Philly Joe Jones, a leading modern-jazz drummer, died of a heart attack Friday, August 30, 1985 at his home in Philadelphia. He was 62 years old.

Mr. Jones was a hard-hitting drummer who gave a spacious sense of swing to his ensembles. His combination of deep-toned tom-tom and bass drums with subtle swirls of cross-rhythm on cymbals was widely imitated. He was a member of the trumpeter Miles Davis's influential mid-1950's quintet, with the bassist Paul Chambers, the pianist Red Garland and the saxophonist John Coltrane.

Joseph Rudolph Jones adopted the name Philly Joe to distinguish him from the pioneering jazz drummer Jo Jones.” 

- Jon Pareles, 9.3. 1985  NY Times Obit

 

“Born Joseph Rudolph Jones, Philly Joe Jones was an exciting, explosive drummer and his influence on modern jazz is legendary.

Considered a superb timekeeper, Philly Joe Jones’ techniques are studied by jazz students throughout the world. Whether his influence was through subtle technique or hard-driving aggression, Philly Joe was versatile, often playing on a minimal drum kit, and adapting his drumming style to create many moods and sounds. His contribution to some of the most important jazz recordings in history elevated the role of drumming in modern jazz and changed the course of jazz music forever.”

- Philadelphia Music Alliance, Walk-of-Fame

W. A. Brower: [“Following a demonstration on the drum set} - That last segment of the drum solo you just played - after the cymbal potion - seemed to flow out of the creative use of rudiments [there are 26 major drum exercises that fall under this classification]. Is this something you got out of studying with Cozy Cole, that real strong rudiments foundation that allows you to branch off like that.

Philly J.J.: “Yeah, that’s Cole’s idea of how you should be a rudimental drummer - they help you in developing your hands. It’ll help you develop your mind, too - as long as you know all the rudiments. Like I said earlier, it’s like a bag of tricks that you can reach into when you need them.” So if it’s something I want to say, I can use the rudiments to say it. Most drummers who don’t know anything about rudiments have a hard time saying what they want to say. It’s just a conversation. Most of the great drummers are rudimental drummers, you know. All the great ones I know went through the rudiments. That don’t mean you have to sound like a boy scout when you play them. And you can make them sound - I can make them do anything I want to.”

- W. A. Brower, June 10, 1985 interview with Philly Joe Jones, Howard University Oral History Project; transcript of audio track of a video tape recorded in the studios of WHMM-TV on the campus of Howard University 

“This thesis explores the life of drummer “Philly” Joseph Rudolf Jones, one of jazz’s most renowned, unknown figures. As the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet/Sextet and a later incarnation of the Bill Evans Trio, Joe achieved worldwide fame and success. Yet, his life story has always been told in the footnotes of the towering figures he performed with: John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, etc. Jazz history books recognize Joe’s contributions and nearly all provide a space, albeit a small one, to recognize his accomplishments.” 

- Dustin E. Mallory, Jonesin’: The Life and Music of Phily Joe Jones, Rutgers University Graduate School, May 2013, Thesis Director, Dr. Lewis Porter. Here’s a link to the entire thesis.

By way of introduction, Philly Joe Jones was one of the greatest of the hard boppers. His contributions to the art of jazz drumming are immeasurable. He was a virtuoso with a pair of brushes, and a genius at turning the rudiments into fluent musical ideas. 

More than any of his peers, it was Philly Joe’s time feel that defined the idea of swing in the 1950s. In retrospect, he would prove to be the strongest link in the chain between Max Roach, Art Blakey, and Roy Haynes, and the Elvin Jones/Tony Williams school that was soon to emerge.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has previously written extensively about Philly in some of the earliest feature for the blog dating back to 2008 and you can find them via these links: The Wonder of Philly Joe Jones, Part 1 and The Wonder of Philly Joe Jones, Part 2.

In the coming weeks, we plan to bring up additional feature about Philly Joe Jones on these pages to build the archive links so as to create a centralized point of  information about this outstanding musician.

In this regard, the following  essay on Philly JJ  can be found in Larry’s Jazz in Search of Itself [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004]. We asked Larry for his consent to post it to the blog and he very kindly said “Yes.”

At its conclusion you’ll find some YouTubes with audio tracks that exemplify Philly Joe Jones’ unique style of Jazz drumming.

© -  Larry Kart: copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

“THERE are drummers who have had a greater influence on the course of modern jazz — Max Roach, Elvin Jones, and Tony Williams come to mind. And there are others who have more successfully parlayed their skills into commercial gain. But, from the first moment I heard him, back in 1955 with Miles Davis, no drummer has given me greater pleasure than Philly Joe Jones.

For one thing, Jones has the rare distinction of having invented a new concept of swing — one that may seem to have been superseded by later developments but one that is, in fact, as timelessly beautiful as the concept of time laid down by jazz's first great percussionist. Baby Dodds. Until Jones came along, jazz rhythm had become increasingly fluid, achieving in the cymbal-oriented work of Roach and Kenny Clarke a remarkable gliding ease. But Jones disrupted that evolution by switching the emphasis back to his snare drum, which chattered away like a machine gun, creating a stiff-legged, irresistibly compulsive drive that, as Miles Davis once said, "could make a dead man walk."

A fairly high volume level usually went along with that style, which obscured one of Jones's key virtues — the remarkable delicacy and precision of his playing. Listening to him is like watching someone weave lace out of barbed wire, as every accent, no matter how angular or explosive, becomes part of an exquisitely balanced design. In that sense Jones resembles a great dancer more than he does other drummers, and the ways in which he introduces the maximum amount of rhythmic obliqueness while still retaining his cool make him one of the most intriguingly graceful jazz percussionists. His left hand — the one controlling the stick that attacks the snare drum — is a study in itself, as it opens and closes, loosens and tightens with the rapidity of a snake's tongue. And often that always functional litheness will

ripple through his entire body, leaving him frozen for an instant in a pose Fred Astaire would have admired.

But of course it is the sounds Jones produces that matter most, and here he is unique, too. The tonal range he gets out of his kit is unusually compact when compared, for example, to Roach's tympanilike spectrum of timbres, and he seems to be constantly striving for a "back-to-basics" effect. It's a dry, all-rhythm approach to drumming that could support a jazz soloist of any era, and it certainly suits the band (tenorman Charles Bowen, pianist Sid Simmons, and bassist Andy McGee) that Jones is leading now. And even though neither Bowen nor Simmons is in the same class as the men Jones once played behind (John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Bud Powell, to name a few), their relative ordinariness is not disturbing because it allows one to concentrate that much more on the masterly patterns of a masterly drummer.

Philly Joe Jones died in 1985.”