ELVIN JONES

jazz drummer-bandleader

“I didn’t buy many record albums when I was young, and I still don’t. I just never thought of collecting records or anything like that.

“But one of the first records that I can remember buying was by the cello player Pablo Casals. I bought records by Duke Ellington, early Miles Davis and things like that...Art Tatum and a lot of old blues guitar players like Blind Lemon Jefferson.

“I’ve accumulated a bunch of records over the years, but I’m not a big buyer. I remember one time when the president of Riverside, just opened up the vault and told me to take as many records as I wanted. I walked out of there with as many Thelonious Monk albums as I could possibly carry.”