Elvin Jones hat ihn zumindest damals, Anfang der 70er, nicht ernst genommen, wie eine kurze Recherche offenbart. (Vielleicht hat sich das im Laufe der Zeit gewandelt. Keine Ahnung. Jones ist tot, kann nichts mehr dazu sagen, spätere Quellen schriftlicher Art sind mir nicht bekannt, die einen Wandel nahelegen würden) Ich zitiere aus "Elvin Jones' kinesthetic trip" [Life 6/1970]. Albert Goldmann, Time-Kritiker, hatte ihm diverse Platten vorgespielt um seine Meinung zum gegenwärtigen Rockdrumming zu hören.
Zitat...Curious to know what the partiarch of the new percussionsts [Elvin Jones] would think of his adoring progeny, I paid Jones a visit next day in his cheerful little flat on Manhattan's West Side. Sipping beer out of a jelly jar clinking with ice cubes, he listened with closed eyes and bent, perspiring forehead while I spun discs by the Who and Blind Faith and Santana. The Afro-Cuban rockers he dug, but mostly as musical wallpaper. Keit Moon's drumming during the "Underture" of Tommy produced appreciative comments: "See there, where the tempo started to die, how he picked it up! The man is a drummer. Everything they play, he contains it."
Only Ginger Baker, of the now defunct Blind Faith, got the strong put-down. Raising his head after an ominously silent hearing of "Do What You Like," with its enormously long drum solo, Jones growled: "Nothing happenin'. Cat's got delusions of Grandeur with no grounds. They should make him an astronaut and lose his ass!"
Bei einem Auftritt in einem Londoner Jazzclub soll Elvins sich nochmals über Baker geäußert haben.
Zitat von Nick Deriso "45 Years Ago: Ginger Baker Faces Jazz Legend Elvin Jones in Furious Drum Battle""Baker had better put his drums where his mouth is," Jones reportedly said during a performance at Ronnie Scott's, a prominent London jazz club.
Jedenfalls machen die Aussagen von Jones, jene von Baker über seine eigenen Fähigkeiten höchst amüsant...
Zitat von Nick Deriso"I do have a God-given gift that only a few drummers have – and it is a gift, it's not something you can work at," Baker once said. "Keith Moon? John Bonham? No, I wouldn't put them in the same frame. They were drummers, but they weren't in any way exceptional in my opinion."
...ebenso wie der Untertitel von Bakers Autobiografie. "The Autobiography of the World's Greatest Drummer" ![]()
