Roy Haynes Trio - Inner Trust
Yes, Inner Trust is the appropriate tune, isn't it? You had to have some to believe that I'd ever return to doing this after buying a house and moving into it. I had to have at least a little bit of it to realize, when I woke up this morning, that Roy Haynes' 100th birthday wasn't in May but today, of all days. We all have to have a whole heaping helping of it every day, to bear to exist in a world that resembles what would result if Idiocracy and that South Park movie with the Uncle Fucker song had a child, and fed it nothing but Ketamine and Pop Rocks.
I was gonna come back tomorrow with some metal so heavy it precipitates spinal surgery, so it'll be two dynamic slabs of deliciousness from me in two days, just to make up for having had more pressing things to do in the last five weeks. Like not putting a down payment on an overpass location, and getting a trillion moving parts to synchronize just to have a shower that doesn't flood the neighborhood, rubber duckies sailing down the street like little refugees from Hurricane Eugene.
Anyway I have done him before here, five years ago to the day it was. But centennials are special, so he will be the first March honoree and also the first of two centennials in the next couple of weeks, for that matter. Making the combined age of the people I'm posting about this month 27,089,192 1/2.
So Roy Haynes, dammit he almost almost almost made it to today, passing away last November at 99 and just a few months shy of triple digits. Or is it digit triplets? I think it's different for drummers.
Jesus Christ, what do you say about Roy Haynes? Actually I might prefer Roy, at least to the white, corporate feudal, authoritarian Drunk Daddy Jesus everyone's so into, and so into denying being into. Roy has a deeper kick drum foot, and also lived exactly three times as long. If someone started a religion based on Roy Haynes' phenomenal stamina and dexterity as a player, I might follow it. Heck, I might tithe to it.
When I was cutting up today's concert -- which I whipped into shape on a dime, having spaced it until this morning, when it dawned on me his big centenary was today -- I was marveling at how, at the time it was taped in 2009, our hero was fully 84 years old. And hitting as hard, as dynamically, and as accurately as anyone alive or dead.
I would look up how many albums and sessions the guy played on or led, or the roster of galactic class luminaries he's shared stages with all over the Earth since he started in the 1940s -- with fully half of the Jazz Mount Rushmore, commonly referred to as Prez and Bird -- but I don't wanna ruin everyone's Minecraft build by crashing the internet.
Not too many people can say that, that they started their careers with Lester Young and Charlie Parker, made funk records in the 1970s that hip-hoppers have raided for breaks, and played with the best musicians breathing well into their 90s. I can't think of any others that check those boxes, although I haven't had any coffee yet today so I might still be in the Oort Cloud.
What gets me about Roy Haynes -- since the day in 1993 when I walked into the Tower Clearance Outlet that used to be on 3rd Street south of Market in SF, and walked out with two of those early '70s Roy gems -- is the not just the longevity, which is obvious, but the diversity in his playing, across so many Jazz tributaries and such.
Every stroke he ever played had an organic, deeply felt quality to it, and without the generic, cliché-a-day stuff so many lesser Jazz and Bop players fall into and, well, ride as a symbol (ok that was bad, I am so sorry) of their mediocrity and lack of imagination.
He'd have been the rarely-attained 100 years old today, but the lessons he taught us drummers are gonna be studied for 100s more. Simply put, there can be no equivocation or exaggeration with titanic players in the echelon of Roy Haynes.
Roy Haynes Trio
JazzAldia 2009
Donostia
Plaza de la Trinidad
San Sebastian, Spain
7.24.2009
01 Trinkle, Tinkle
02 Blues On the Corner
03 Sonny Side
04 James
05 My One and Only Love
06 Shades of Senegal
07 Green Chimneys
08 Jesus On the Mainline
09 Inner Trust
10 Summer Night
11 Sneakin' Around
Total time: 1:13:20
John Patitucci - bass
Dave Kikoski - piano
Roy Haynes - drums
224/48k audio extracted from a PAL DVD of a European digital satellite broadcast of the concert
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked & slightly remastered by EN, March 2025
418 MB FLAC/direct link
418 MB FLAC/direct link
As I alluded to, I will be back in 24 hours with something completely different to lull everyone to a peaceful state of soporificity. If that's a word. Oh well, I guess if US Mass Media can spend decades branding predatory, insider trading Capitalists to the extreme right of Eisenhower as "Communists," I can make up a word now and again, can't I?
Never mind all that, let's keep our Equipoise and celebrate the centennial of Roy Haynes, most assuredly one of the greatest and most long-lasting percussionists ever to be discussed for hitting stuff!--J.
3.13.1925 - 11.12.2024