Elvin Jones

After serving in the army Elvin Jones moved to New York City in 1955 and worked as a sideman for Charles Mingus, Teddy Charles, Bud Powell, Stan Getz and Miles Davis. One of Elvin's most significant recordings during this period was with Sonny Rollins on an album titled A Night at the Village Vanguard (1957). That recording remains an important document of Elvin's emerging style.

From 1960 to 1966, he was a member of the John Coltrane quartet (along with Jimmy Garrison on bass and McCoy Tyner on piano), a celebrated recording phase, appearing on such albums as A Love Supreme and Live at Birdland. He recorded extensively for Blue Note under his own name in the late 1960s and early 1970s with groups that featured prominent as well as up and coming musicians and in the early 1980s Elvin started calling his group The Jazz Machine. Elvin continued to be in-demand for recordings, and appeared on albums by Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, John Hicks, David Murray, Sonny Sharrock, John McLaughlin and Joe Lovano. He was inducted into the PAS Hall of Fame in 1991, Modern Drummer Hall of Fame 1995 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music (2001).

Elvin played Gretsch drums from 1958 through to 1978 using a Gretsch Round Badge (early USA Custom) kit.