Jazz Drummer Honored

With the 1959 releases of Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” Ornette Coleman’s “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” and John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” the world of modern jazz changed forever. Fifty years later, Harvard University continued the tradition of these modern jazz legends last Saturday by honoring drummer Roy Haynes as the 2009 Jazz Master in Residence at Harvard University in “Cracklin’ with Roy—Honoring Roy Haynes.”

Harvard has been honoring jazz masters for some 30 years, according to Thomas Everett, director of the Harvard University Band and Jazz Bands, but the unique title of Jazz Master in Residence is fairly new. While Everett admits that “1959 was really remarkable, a real turning point for modern jazz,” the 50 year anniversary is a mere—but fitting—coincidence; the honor here is all about legendary jazz drummer Roy Haynes. Everett says that a Jazz Master in Residence “usually means a senior member in the jazz community, somebody that has their own identifiable sound, and Roy, when he plays, has his own sound. He is also quite an underrated jazz master and musician that really deserves the honor.” Everett and a committee made up of several people from the Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music Ingrid Monson chose Roy Haynes from the top of their list.

“Roy Haynes is a living legend, a walking history of Jazz,” Everett says. Growing up in Boston near Long Wharf, Haynes “just about played with every major innovative artist since 1945, and he keeps the tradition alive,” according to Everett. Before his first New York gig with Luis Russell in 1945, Haynes was already making a name for himself as a teenager at Martha’s Vineyard playing with the likes of guitarist Tom Brown, bandleader Sabby Lewis, and saxophonist Pete Brown. Once joining Russell in New York at the renowned Savoy Ballroom, Haynes’ opportunities multiplied, allowing him to collaborate with everyone from Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane to Stan Getz and Chick Corea.

“[Coltrane] was one of the first artists playing an instrument to come to a climax, bring it down, and bring it right back up again,” Haynes recalls of his time playing with Coltrane just a few years after the release of “Giant Steps.” Another particularly special partnership for Haynes was with female jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan. Playing for Vaughan had its financial and artistic benefits.

“[I] liked the material things. It may be weird you know, but I wanted a house,” Haynes says. “But Sarah Vaughan, to me, was not just another singer.” Playing with Vaughan and the other jazz greats, Haynes came to realize his place in the genre: “The drummer is the heartbeat. If the heart stops beating, you’re dead.”

To enhance the festivities honoring Haynes, the OFA invited special guest and Grammy-winning trumpet virtuoso Roy Hargrove. Hargrove, who recorded with Haynes on the 2001 Charlie Parker tribute “Birds of a Feather,” views Haynes as a key influence on modern jazz. In a presentation sponsored by The Harvard College American Music Association and the Harvard Jazz Bands, Hargrove said that many of the current young players are “forgetting about the main element that makes you feel good, snap your fingers—the swing.”

Another aspect that Hargrove finds so important in a musician is the ability to play in any type of genre or environment. “It’s not enough to just be able to play any more,” he says. “If you are going to be playing you can’t limit yourself to being just one kind of musician. Be the player that can play in any style; be multifaceted.”

Tom Everett says the committee brought Hargrove in addition “because he has had an association with Roy Haynes; we bring in a senior established jazz master and a younger musician to see the tradition is going to live on and that the sound of Roy Haynes will continue in Roy Hargrove and Harvard jazz students in the future.” He adds, “Roy Hargrove is a remarkable, diverse type of player who has a great deal of respect for Roy Haynes and together it is fascinating to watch their interaction and mutual respect and even risk; feeling so confident in their abilities, they can try out new things, improvisations they haven’t done before.”

The introduction of this risk-taking musicianship is something that Everett hopes his students can experience. “Cracklin’ with Roy” allowed Harvard jazz band students an opportunity to perform with both Haynes and Hargrove. Everett hopes that these opportunities for Harvard students to play with seasoned musical celebrities will facilitate the passing on of their traditions and abilities. By playing with Roy Haynes and Roy Hargrove, Everett says, the students have the opportunity to learn from their predecessors: “The students are being passed down all that [Haynes] has learned from the people he has played with. These students who played with him will be part of that

connection.”