WICN Artist of the Month, March 2025: Roy Haynes

Each jazz instrument has its history of legendary players. Think Miles on the trumpet; Coltrane on the sax; Monk at the piano. There are many such superb musicians who are universally revered for their craftsmanship and innovation.

 

When it comes to jazz drummers, as well as a bandleader, Roy Haynes had an oversized reach of influence stylistically while maintaining his prominence in a career that extending over seven decades. His early career (1947-49) launched with swing-era saxophonist Lester Young before he began to display a predominantly bebop-style of drumming, (1949-52) performing and recording with giants such as Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Thelonius Monk, among others. Fast forward to the 1970s and Haynes formed several other bands that included a pre-jazz funk-fusion release called Hip Ensemble (Mainstream, 1971) and much later, in 1990, collaborated with jazz guitarist and bandleader Pat Metheny on the Grammy-award winning Question and Answer (Geffen, 1991). As he remained in demand and productive in the recording studio as well as onstage well into his 80s, his career arc spans genres of jazz from swing, bebop, jazz fusion, and avant-garde.

 

 

Haynes was nicknamed “Snap Crackle” for his crisp, precise, and energetic style of percussion. In his own words, he stated, “A lot of people describe my drumming as ‘snap, crackle’; I’m just an old-time drummer who tries to play with feeling.” As a transcendent musician, capable of integrating his own signature rhythm and beat, he is found on studio and live recordings throughout all generations of band leaders during his multi-decade career. As quoted by two bandleaders of different generations, he had a reputation for the highest standard of skill, instinct, and delivery of all “possibilities” in each musical genre:

“He’s the perfect guy for trying new stuff. He’s a free soul with extraordinary instincts— much less tied to the traditional drummer’s role than almost anyone. He’s a great model for how we all should be. There’s this tendency to go stale musically, to kind of get stuck at some point. And he never does.

We’ve been together since the 1960s in a variety of situations — with Stan Getz and in my bands. Roy takes chances if he’s attracted by the possibilities of anything.

• Gary Burton, vibraphonist and bandleader

 

“I feel instantly comfortable with Roy Haynes. He’s so easy to play with, so fun, because everything is so perfectly subdivided and perfectly enunciated. He’s so fluent rhythmically with every little thing he does that you can fit right inside it.

To play effectively with Roy, you have to be confident and secure as a

musician. You have to know where you are in the song and where you are in the bar — because his whole thing is displacement. The people who seem to enjoy playing with Roy the most are those who are pretty advanced rhythmically.”

• Pat Metheny, guitarist and bandleader

A contemporary and legendary drummer in his own right, Jack DeJohnette spoke of Haynes’ influence as “paving the way for both Elvin Jones and Tony Williams.” His technique rearrangements were myriad. Jazz critic Scott Fish (and drummer) explained one innovation with which Haynes is credited,  “He (Haynes) was the first drummer to move away from playing the hi-hat with his foot on the 2 and 4 beats. For a long time, that was the rule of thumb for playing a drum set. You played the hi-hat on beats 2 and 4. Roy Haynes treated his left foot on the hi-hat much the way he treated his right foot on his bass drum. Both were independent parts of the drum set.” Many other subtle techniques would become hallmarks of jazz drumming over the breadth of his accomplished career.

His experimentation within the 4-bar beat was always “in the ear” of the lead musician, constantly looking for a new expression of timing. As stated by jazz drummer Kenny Washington, “Roy plays like a man on a tightrope. Even when you think he’s going to fall, he gets it together. The sound of the instrument and how he plays it is always in my ear. I’m fascinated by the way he handles time, the way he shuffles the beat around, the way he manipulates it.” Credited with a number of innovations, Haynes was noted throughout his career as a groundbreaker that often contributed to each band’s distinctive rhythm. He also impacted each period of jazz stylistically, whether he was a percussion sideman or a bandleader.

Haynes would also establish his drumming as a superb accompaniment to vocalists, particularly Sarah Vaughan in the 1950s. Their musical collaboration would last 5 years, during which he was praised for “establishing a sensitivity and grace” as an accompanist.

Some of his most noted work in the 1960s came when he was subbing for Coltrane’s quartet drummer, Elvin Jones. He established a style that was lighter and less aggressive – “giving the Quartet a different sound.” During this same period, he also appeared on dozens of albums, including many regarded as classics, among them Eric Dolphy’s Outward Bound (1960), Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth (1961), Stan Getz’s Focus (1962) and Chick Corea’s Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (1968).

In the mid-60s, Haynes would also play on several albums with bandleader and vibraphonist Gary Burton, which pre-figures the rise of jazz fusion including Duster, Times Square, and Like Minds on the RCA and ECM labels. On these recordings, he would coincidentally be playing with future leaders of modern jazz directions: Larry Coryell and Pat Metheny. Recording with Metheny in 1990 on Grammy-award winning Question and Answer (Geffen, 1991), he would be praised by this bandleader for his demanding standards. In reciprocation, Mr. Haynes featured Metheny on an album of his own, Te-Vou! (Dreyfus Records, 1995), alongside bassist Christian McBride, the alto saxophonist Donald Harrison and the pianist David Kikoski.

He was known to celebrate his birthdays on stage, and later in his career, at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City, only a few hours south of his place of birth—Roxbury, Massachusetts.

He passed away on November 12, 2024, just four months shy of his 100^th birthday.

His awards and honors are all of the highest degree and too many to cover in this article, but include: in 1994 Haynes was awarded the Danish JazzPar Prize and in 1996, the French government knighted him with the France’s top literary and artistic honor, Chevalier de I’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1995, the National Endowment for the Arts named Haynes an NEA Jazz Master. Haynes received honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music (1991) and New England Conservatory of Music (2004).

As a sideman in constant demand, Haynes had less time to feature himself as a bandleader, yet he produced his own recordings with a variety of jazz artists throughout his life. However, the greatest compliment of a jazz legend’s career can be reflected in the reverence of the generations of bandleaders and artists that come after. Roy Haynes has become a standard by which jazz drummers today may be measured against.

This month, WICN Public Radio celebrates the life and legacy of Roy Haynes and pays tribute to what would have been a spectacular 100^th birthday celebration.