{"id":316,"date":"2010-05-17T07:07:35","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T11:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2010\/05\/hank_jones_reigning_jazz_piani\/"},"modified":"2011-04-28T16:33:19","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T20:33:19","slug":"hank_jones_reigning_jazz_piani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/05\/hank_jones_reigning_jazz_piani.html","title":{"rendered":"Hank Jones, reigning jazz pianist, dies, age 91"},"content":{"rendered":"

A moderate modernist with beautiful touch and exquisite taste, Hank Jones was a beacon of  gentle authority, genuine modesty and jazz grace at the keyboard. Oldest brother of the more unruly trumpeter-composer Thad Jones and drummer Elvin Jones, Hank epitomized balance, consistency and flexibility. It was a joy to be in his company, whether listening to him or speaking with him. I was lucky to interview him in tandem with pianist Geri Allen — generations apart, but both from the Detroit area —  as published in my book Future Jazz<\/a><\/i>, and to sit with him at length again in 2009 for Down Beat<\/a>. Here’s a photo by Enid Farber<\/a> from the 2009 Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards of Hank with the picture of himself by Kris King that won the Award for Photo of the Year. \"HankWhat follows is my (long) article from my 2009 interview — with links to Amazon of some of his best albums, in case you’re moved, as I hope you will be, to hear him play . . .<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n


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\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pianist Hank Jones is a
\ncourtly gentleman of the old school, who wears a coat and tie for an interview
\nconducted in his own lodgings and is forthright about his approach to music in
\nthe 21st century.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

“I try to play
\nevenly,” Jones says with genuine humility about his style, which is widely
\nregarded as maintaining the highest standard for keyboard playing in the
\ncontemporary vernacular. “I don’t take too many excursions, I don’t go too
\nfar away from the melody, I don’t go out in the deep water. I want the listener
\nto understand what I’m doing. I try to stay pretty much right down the middle
\nand yet keep it interesting.”<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

In these efforts he has
\nsucceed magnificently, though he understates the depths he’s mastered — as
\nwell as the progressive broadening as well as continuity of what’s “right
\ndown the middle” of jazz that he has established and documented in more
\nthan 450 recordings under his own leadership and with the greatest vocal and
\ninstrumental stars from the ’40s through today. At age 91, Hank Jones is
\nuniversally acknowledged to be what his frequent collaborator Joe Lovano calls
\n“a treasure”: a man of experience who embodies the wit, warmth,
\nelegance, swing, sagacity, ongoing productivity and open-minded creativity we
\nhope for from all artists and too rarely find. Besides the respect — no, awe<\/i>
\n— of his colleagues and international audiences, Jones has been the recipient
\nof numerous honors, being designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment
\nfor the Arts, given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and now inducted into
\nDown Beat’s Hall of Fame.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pianist takes this
\nall in stride (pun intended) as befits a man who began professional life at age
\n13 under the esthetic sway of Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Earl “Fatha”
\nHines and Teddy Wilson. “I’m just trying to keep up with the other
\nguys,” he insists, those “guys” being the pianists he’s known
\nand admired. His conversation is laced with references to the late Oscar
\nPeterson, Erroll Garner, Bill Evans Tommy Flanagan and John Lewis, as well as
\nGeorge Shearing, Barry Harris, Marian McPartland and diverse next-generation
\nplayers. But one wonders: Who can keep up with Mr. Jones?<\/span><\/p>\n

His schedule of bookings
\nis the envy and would be a challenge for much younger musicians. When he sat
\ndown to talk for an hour in the comfortable but unfussy apartment he sublets in
\nManhattan while his home in Cooperstown, New York undergoes long-term
\nrenovations, he was in preparation for a concert in The Hague with the
\nMetropole Orchestra. He was scheduled to perform in July in Donostia-San
\nSebastian, Spain, fronting his trio with bassist George Mraz and drummer Willie
\nJones III, as well as at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival in duet with Lovano
\n(they issued Kids: Duets Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola<\/a><\/i> in 2007).<\/span><\/p>\n

He and Lovano are
\nperforming at George Wein’s reconstituted Newport Jazz Festival, and in
\nMonterey with a co-led quartet completed by bassist John Patitucci and drummer
\nBrian Blade. Jones is also the guest of honor at the 30th Detroit International
\nJazz Festival, which has built its Labor Day weekend programming around the
\ntheme “Keepin’ Up with the Joneses: A nod to Thad, Elvin and Hank, and a
\ncelebration of other family dynasties.”<\/span><\/p>\n

While it’s accurate to
\ndescribe Hank Jones as a titan of a dynasty, and he grew up with musical parents
\nand siblings, his status does not rest on the achievements of a family band.
\nRather, he is a “patriarch of the Detroit piano legacy,” as the
\npianist Geri Allen, a fellow Detroit-area native and one of Jones’ most ardent
\nfollowers, puts it. Hank worked only occasionally with his younger brothers
\nThad and Elvin, innovators of big band composing and traps drumming,
\nrespectively, over the course of their parallel careers. They’re deceased —
\nThad since ’86, Elvin since 2004 — and Hank misses them, of course, speaking
\nenthusiastically about their unique sounds. “I’d rather listen to what
\nthey do than play myself,” he mentions. But Hank Jones doesn’t live in the
\npast so much as the present and foreseeable future. He knows who he is, where
\nhe’s come from, what he’s done and how to continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You’ve got to live
\nyour age,” he says — wisdom that has many possible interpretations, but
\nseems to mean to him mostly that time travels on and if we’re lucky, we go with
\nit. He’s been lucky and isn’t about to stop.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It takes a lot of
\nconcentration,” Jones continues, in response to a comment that he seems to
\nbe capable of every opportunity, collaboration and repertoire directed his way.
\n“If there’s any secret — and I don’t think there is — it’s certainly
\nthat: Whatever you’re doing, give it 100 per cent concentration. Really focus
\non that thing. That’s what I believe, that’s what I have to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I took that idea, I
\nthink, from my father, one of the most upright men I’ve ever known. He used to
\nplay a little guitar around the house, not professionally, but he served as a
\ngreat role model. He was a clean living person. He didn’t drink or smoke, and
\nhe was a Christian. I’ve followed his way of doing things, and it’s worked out
\npretty well for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You see, there is
\nno magic involved in playing the piano. It takes hard work, continuous hard
\nwork. Whatever skills are involved, it’s a matter of practice. You can never
\nsay reach a point where you don’t think it’s necessary to practice anymore.
\nIt’s always necessary to practice everyday. If you can do that, then you can
\nmaintain whatever skills you have, and perhaps even increase<\/i> your
\nskills. To me, that’s the only way to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n

“That’s something I
\nlearned over time. At first I hated to practice. My mother had to threaten me,
\nsaying ‘Either you practice or you don’t have dinner.’ At that time, I
\npracticed because I had<\/i> to. I practice now because I want<\/i> to. And
\nit’s been that way for many years — a minimum of two hours a day. If I have
\nmore time I’ll spend more time. If I’m working on something specific, like
\nsongs I’m going to be playing, I’ll spend a lot more time. I work on technical
\nthings like scales and exercises, then combine them with the tunes I’m going to
\nbe playing that I may be learning. I can spend eight hours at the piano easily,
\nand not even know where the time went.<\/span><\/p>\n

“A performance
\ndepends on how much I practice. It works that way. If you want to be able to do
\nthe things you want to do, you have to practice. Then the performance comes
\neasy. I think if you’re really going to play to your best, in any style, you
\nhave to be aware of what your fingers are doing. Your fingers have to be in
\nshape or you can’t play anything. That’s why it’s necessary for me to practice.
\nI feel that in order to do anything — certainly to play my own ideas — I have
\nto practice. Otherwise I can’t execute properly.”<\/span><\/p>\n

He emphasizes the most
\ntried-and-true dictums of music pedagogy. “When I first started I studied
\nclassical music,” he recalls. “I think that gave me a foundation,
\nsomething every pianist needs. If I were asked for some guidelines, they would
\nbe: Study, know the piano, study with the best teacher you can find at the very
\nbeginning. That’s important, because if you don’t learn the right way to play,
\nit will be pretty hard to change that way later. If you use the wrong
\ntechnique, it’s very hard to get rid of. Yes, that’s what I would advise young
\npeople.”<\/span><\/p>\n

As a young person
\nhimself, Jones evidently practiced what he preaches, because he began gigging
\nwith upper midwest “territory bands” while in his teens. In his early
\n20s he left home on saxophonist Lucky Thompson’s promise of a gig on 52nd
\nStreet with Hot Lips Page. Promise realized, Jones went on to work with Andy
\nKirk, Billy Eckstine, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Brown, enlist in
\nNorman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic touring cast with Brown and Max Roach
\nsupporting Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, Flip Phillips, et al.,
\nand by the 1950s was much in demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

He accompanied, recorded
\nand toured with Sarah Vaughan, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Cannonball and Nat
\nAdderley’s band. He anchored the rhythm section for virtually everyone who
\nrecorded for the Savoy label (Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Frank Wess, Kenny
\nClarke, et al). Then he served for 17 years in the CBS television studio band,
\nlimiting himself to sessions close to home — Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin<\/a><\/i>,
\nJohn Coltrane’s Bags and Trane<\/a>, <\/i>Dakota Staton’s The Late, Late Show<\/a>, <\/i>Wes
\nMontgomery’s So Much Guitar<\/a>, <\/i>Roland Kirk’s We Free Kings<\/a><\/i>, dates
\nwith Johnny Mathis and Bobby Darin. He sat in with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis
\nOrchestra when it was established at the Village Vanguard in 1968 (Roland Hanna
\ntook over his chair). In the mid ’70s Jones emerged from his staff job to labor
\non Broadway in Ain’t Misbehavin’<\/a><\/i>. That lasted five years. One might say
\nHank Jones two-handedly restored Fats Waller’s reputation — hear his utterly
\nenjoyable Waller tribute album A Handful of Keys<\/a><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

After leaving the show
\nover a contract dispute, Jones re-engaged with personal pursuits that he’d put
\non hold during his CBS tenure (among the advantages of steady employment he
\ncounts learning discipline, improvising his sight reading and being able to have
\na homelife). He immersed himself in solo piano club and concert bookings and
\nalbums, acclaimed duets (“A very difficult format to work with. . .the
\nproblem being two pianists seldom think alike harmonically”), tours and
\nrecords with the Great Jazz Trio<\/a> (combinations of Ron Carter, Buster Williams,
\nEddie Gomez and Tony Williams, Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb), one-offs with brilliant,
\noriginal talents (for instance, Charlie Haden on Steal Away<\/a><\/i>, Dave
\nHolland and Billy Higgins on The Oracle<\/a><\/i>, Mandinka bandleader Cheick-Tidiane
\nSeck on Sarala<\/a><\/i>,). He also sustained long relationships such as that he
\nhas with tenor sax and flutist Wess (“he still sounds great after all
\nthese years”) most recently co-starring on Hank and Frank<\/a><\/i> (2004)
\nand Hank and Frank, Vol. 2<\/a><\/i> (2006). Whatever he does bears dependable
\nattributes: the Hank Jones stamp of excellence, style and taste.<\/span><\/p>\n

“My style? How did
\nit come about?,” Jones is surprised to be asked. “What happens is,
\nafter you’ve heard a lot, when you’ve digested many different styles, sooner or
\nlater you develop an idea of your own. You want to play your way. Which may or
\nmay not be similar to somebody else. If you’re lucky, it doesn’t sound like
\nsomebody else. That’s what students should aspire to: Develop their own style,
\ntheir own interpretations. They can play the same compositions, but their own
\nway. And it should be pleasing to listen to. Although that’s another matter, a
\nmatter of taste, and how you develop that. I must say most of my ideas come
\nfrom listening to people like Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, Fats — the
\npiano players of my day.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The way I look at
\nit, taste comes from listening to a great variety of people, and either
\naccepting or rejecting portions of it all. What you retain is what you embody
\nin your conception of what that particular composition should sound like. That
\nbecomes known as taste. The method you use, the dynamics, everything that goes
\ninto performing, that becomes you, your taste. That’s what I bring to every
\nsituation, even when I played Fats Waller’s music in Ain’t Misbehavin’<\/i>.
\nI took some liberties with it. You’re not supposed to do that, but if it
\nenhances the performance, or let’s say the likability of the audiences towards
\nwhat you’re doing, then it’s proper. I don’t think you should go too far out,
\nthough. I try not to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

“My idol is the
\ngreat Art Tatum<\/a>, there’s nobody like him. Maybe somebody will come along years
\nfrom now or who knows, maybe they’re already here and I haven’t heard them. But
\nhe is absolutely the greatest pianist I’ve ever heard for ideas, technique,
\nstamina, everything. He has a wonderful sense of humor, it’s there in his
\ninterpolations, and he plays in such a way that anybody who never heard him
\nbefore can understand what he does. He’s always listening carefully, and he has
\na great ear. He has that blinding technique, can do anything he thinks of, and
\nwith either hand. His technique, I think, is a gift from God. Put all that
\ntogether, you’ve got an Art Tatum. That’s how he was.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I don’t have
\nanything like that kind of technique. I usually focus on the melody. I
\nestablish the melody because unless you do, nobody’s going to know what you’re
\ndoing. Then the harmony may or may not stay the same. You may find instances
\nwhere you vary the harmony, but you don’t get that far away from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I try to use my
\nimagination and try to think of something that’s relevant, not only to the
\nharmony, but to the melody, then you try to make something out of it. It’s like
\nbuilding a house or anything. You start with a basic design, then you try to build
\nit and embellish as you go.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You’ve got to use
\ncommon sense about it. You should always keep in mind that somebody is
\nlistening to what you’re doing. If you’re going to play something that nobody
\nunderstands, it’s pointless. I believe you play for yourself but you’re also
\nplaying for the audience. If the audience wasn’t there, you<\/i> wouldn’t
\nhave any reason for being there. You want to play something the audience is
\ngoing to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I try to coordinate
\neverything, but I don’t pre-plan everything. Whatever you do comes from what
\nyou’ve learned in the past. What you’ve learned is on the way to where you are
\nat this time. Wherever that performance takes place, it involves everything you
\nknow at that point of time. What you do may change over time, because you may
\nabsorb something else into your style. You may always say, ‘I’ll go in that<\/i>
\ndirection, or this<\/i> direction.’ Nothing really stands still. Time moves
\non.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

“It seems to me that
\none of the basic tenets of jazz is that you have to listen to what’s going on.
\nHow can you adapt to or accommodate something or someone if you don’t listen,
\nand very carefully? It’s critical, absolutely essential, if you’re working in
\nthe duo piano format, But even if you’re working in a trio or quartet, you have
\nto listen to what the other musicians are doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I think the rhythm
\nsection is really the key to what the horn players play, because the horn
\nplayers react to what the rhythm section is doing, harmonically and
\nrhythmically. That’s just my interpretation of it. Maybe in some groups they
\ndon’t think that’s true, but I think the piano and the bass are the most
\nimportant instruments in the band. The pianist and the bassist must be in
\ntotal, complete harmony. If they don’t play the same notes, they must<\/i>
\nplay the same chords. There are a lot of bassists I’ve really enjoyed playing
\nwith,” he says, dropping names from his early days<\/a> (Tommy Potter) and his
\ncurrent engagements (Mraz<\/a>, John Clayton).<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked about what he wants
\nto do next, Jones says, “Oh, so many things,” but doesn’t detail them
\nbeyond, “I have more records in mind.” Asked what he likes to do
\nbesides make music, he pauses. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I like to watch tv,
\ncertain programs I like. I used to play golf a little bit, but I don’t do that
\nany more. I never played any other sports. I don’t drink, don’t gamble, don’t
\nplay cards, don’t smoke, don’t do anything like that. Chase girls? No, I don’t
\ndo that!<\/span><\/p>\n

“But you know what?
\nWe were talking about concentration, right? What does it take to concentrate?
\nFirst of all: Interest. You have to have interest in what you’re doing,
\nabsorbed in what you’re doing, completely focused. That, combined with
\nknowledge, with ability, with perception, with creativity — all of that’s
\ninvolved. But when you sit down to try to think about it, I don’t think you do think
\nabout it.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

“You think about
\nwhat’s put before you, that’s what you concentrate on. You don’t think about
\nwhy you’re doing it or how you’re doing it, but when you are<\/i> doing it,
\nyou see the results. It’s a very strong force. I don’t know what’s involved.
\nBut when you have it, you can hear it. If you don’t have it, you can hear it.
\nYou can’t hear it if you don’t have it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Hank Jones has it. You
\ncan hear it.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

*                   *                   *<\/font><\/p>\n

At the 2009 Jazz Awards<\/a>, Hank in accepting his statuette for Pianist of the Year mentioned that as far as his music went, he promised to keep trying. He had hopes that he would improve over “the next, oh, 25 years.” That is not to be — because it’s quite hard to improve on perfection. Thankfully, we have a lifetime of perfect pianism by Hank Jones to enjoy.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/font><\/p>\n


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