[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 142 (Monday, September 24, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1959-E1960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A SALUTE TO ROY HAYNES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 24, 2007

  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, as Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus 
and Chairman of the 23rd Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual 
Legislative Conference Jazz Forum and Concert, I rise to salute the 
lifetime achievements of one of the most distinguished jazz artists in 
American music history, Roy Haynes.
  One of the most recorded drummers in the history of jazz, Haynes has 
played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz 
fusion and avant-garde jazz in his 60-year career. He has a highly 
expressive, personal style (``Snap Crackle'' was a nickname given him 
in the 1950s) and is known to foster a deep engagement with his band 
mates.
  Roy Haynes was born in Boston on March 13, 1925, and, like so many of 
his contemporaries became keenly interested in music, and in 
particular, jazz, at an early age. Primarily self-taught, he began to 
work in Boston in 1942 with musicians like Charlie Christian, Tom 
Brown, Sabby Lewis, and Pete Brown. In the summer of 1945, he got a 
call to join legendary bandleader Luis Russell (responsible for much of 
Louis Armstrong's musical backing from 1929 to 1933) to play for the 
dancers at New York's legendary Savoy Ballroom. When not traveling with 
Russell, the young drummer spent much time on Manhattan's 52nd Street 
and uptown at Minton's, the legendary incubator of bebop, soaking up 
the scene.
  Over the next 30 years, Haynes would go on to play with virtually 
every jazz musician of note. He was Lester Young's drummer from 1947 to 
1949, worked with Bud Powell and Miles Davis in 1949, and became 
Charlie Parker's drummer of choice from 1949 to 1953. He toured the 
world with Sarah Vaughan from 1954 to 1959, did numerous extended gigs 
with Thelonious Monk in 1959-60, and made eight recordings with Eric 
Dolphy in 1960-61. Haynes worked extensively with Stan Getz from 1961 
to 1965, played and recorded with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1963 
to 1965, has collaborated with Chick Corea since 1968, and with Pat 
Metheny during the '90s. Metheny was featured on Haynes' previous 
Dreyfus release Te Vou! (voted by NAIRD as Best Contemporary Jazz 
Record of 1996). He's been an active bandleader from the late '50s to 
the present, featuring artists in performance and on recordings like 
Phineas Newborn, Booker Ervin, Roland Kirk, George Adams, Hannibal 
Marvin Peterson, Ralph Moore and Donald Harrison. A perpetual top three 
drummer in the Downbeat Readers Poll Awards, he won the Best Drummer 
honors in 1996 (and many years since), and in that year received the 
prestigious French Chevalier des l'Ordres Artes et des Lettres. In 
2002, Roy Haynes' album Birds of a Feather, his tribute to the immortal 
Charlie ``Bird'' Parker, was nominated for a Best Jazz Instrumental 
Album Grammy.

  Of his style and music Haynes' says: ``I structure pieces like riding 
a horse . . . you pull a rein here, you tighten it up here, you loosen 
it there. I'm still sitting in the driver's seat, so to speak. I let it 
loose, I let it go, I see where it's going and what it feels like. 
Sometimes I take it out, sometimes I'll be polite, nice and let it move 
and breathe--always in the pocket and with feeling. So the music is 
tight but loose.''
  Haynes continued, ``I am constantly practicing in my head. In fact, a 
teacher in school once sent me to the principal, because I was drumming 
with my hands on the desk in class. My father used to say I was just 
nervous. I'm always thinking rhythms, drums. When I was very young I 
used to practice a lot; not any special thing, but just practice 
playing. Now I'm like a doctor. When he's operating on you, he's 
practicing. When I go to my gigs, that's my practice. I may play 
something that I never heard before or maybe that you never heard 
before. It's all a challenge.''
  ``I deal with sounds. I'm full of rhythm, man. I feel it. I think 
summer, winter, fall, spring,

[[Page E1960]]

hot, cold, fast and slow--colors. But I don't analyze it. I've been 
playing professionally over 50 years, and that's the way I do it. I 
always surprise myself. The worst surprise is when I can't get it to 
happen. But it usually comes out. I don't play for a long period, and 
then I'm like an animal, a lion or tiger locked in its cage, and when I 
get out I try to restrain myself. I don't want to overplay. I like the 
guys to trade, and I just keep it moving, and spread the rhythm, as 
Coltrane said. Keep it moving, keep it crisp.''
  Madam Speaker, it is my honor to offer this salute to Roy Haynes as a 
true Modern Jazz Giant and a living national treasure and the 
embodiment of the values and principles set forth in H. Con. Res. 57, 
the joint resolution passed on John Coltrane's birthday 20 years ago, 
which has become the gold standard rubric for the proper recognition of 
jazz and its practitioners.

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