Roy Haynes: 13/3/1925 – 12/11/2024

Few musicians in jazz have appeared in so many different contexts as the great drummer Roy Haynes, yet remained completely convincing in all of them. Whether in his early days with Luis Russell’s big band, his bebop ventures with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell or Charles Mingus, his brief stints with John Coltrane, or his years with Sarah Vaughan, he always seemed to know exactly how to complement his fellow musicians, and show the best in his own work. The same applied to his fusion ventures with his Hip Ensemble, or with Gary Burton, as well as keeping pace with such players as Chick Corea, Pat Metheny and David Murray.

In Roy’s own mind, the reason for his continued success and longevity was simple: “I consider myself a swing drummer, then and now.” Back in 1999, he told me, “I can swing in the real meaning of the word ‘swing’. I’m an old time swing drummer, with a modern touch.” Remembering his early days in Boston to his time with Russell, whom he joined at the age of 20, Roy had incredible recall, able to explain what he learned from his predecessors Paul Barbarin and Sid Catlett. He could bring his two years with Lester Young in the late ‘40s vividly to life, recalling Lester’s playing but also his off-stage original personality. A fan of bebop, to the extent he would journey down to New York from Boston in his teens to hear Charlie Parker, he was to work with the saxophonist often from 1949-52, when Kenny Clarke told him that he was bringing something fresh and different to the music from Kenny’s own playing or that of Max Roach.

That difference was his explosive sense of unfettered swing and excitement, perhaps never better captured than in his 1953 work in a trio with Powell and Mingus at Washington’s Club Kavakos. Yet that same year he began a five-year association with Sarah Vaughan that proved him to be one of the most subtle and sympathetic accompanists of all. He liked her because, as he said, “She was not just a singer — she was a great musician also.” This expressive range reached its zenith, in Roy’s own mind, when he deputized for Elvin Jones in the Coltrane quartet, telling me: “With John Coltrane I could express myself more so than at any other time.” He always said that ‘After the Rain’ was his crowning achievement with that quartet.

From that point in the 1960s up until shortly before the Covid epidemic, Roy continued to work in a bewildering array of contexts. Highlights included festival concerts with Dizzy Gillespie, trios with Chick Corea, and taking over Brian Blade’s stool with Danilo Perez and John Pattitucci. For me, two things stand out from the later years. The first was his outstanding five-piece band Birds of a Feather with Roy Hargrove, Kenny Garrett, Dave Kikowski and Dave Holland, which re-explored the Parker repertoire. Having worked with Bird, Roy was invited to do the project, as very few other contemporaries of Parker were still active. Their eponymous album from 2001 is remarkable, especially the version of ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’, but they were even better live, as I discovered at Tanglewood that same year — a concert Roy described to me afterwards as ‘Very mellow!’ The other memorable moment was his Carnegie Hall reunion with Sonny Rollins in 2007, for which they were joined by Christian McBride, where Roy played dazzlingly, notably behind Sonny’s circular breathing on ‘Sonnymoon for Two’.

Roy will be much missed, but to get a marvellous snapshot of the incredible variety and quality of his music, check out the 3CD plus DVD set A Life in Time (2007) on the French Dreyfus label, which is Roy’s own choice of his career highlights.