Photograph courtesy of Howard Gitelson

I consider myself lucky to have seen Jones perform with his most recent group, “Jazz Machine,” several times in the past few years on the Dakota stage, and can only wonder what I missed of the master in his prime.

It was fitting that Elvin’s group was the first national act at the new Dakota on Nicollet Mall in October 2003, as no other then-living musician so epitomized the transition from past to present to future. It was unfortunate that one of the Strib’s infrequent reviews of local jazz was Jim Meyer’s “New Dakota Shines, Elvin Jones Doesn’t” (October 29). Jones deserved better, not only for what he had contributed to the music over time, but because anyone, even Elvin Jones himself, would find him a hard act to follow. The sold-out crowds did not stand and cheer merely out of gratitude for 90 minutes of music or Minnesota Niceness. At 76, Jones showed he still had more energy than most drummers half his age, and his much younger cohorts were dramatic proof of the vitality of mainstream jazz. Whatever decline (if any) was reflected in Jones’ drumming in recent years, he clearly was at the top of the game in promoting young talent.

"His main achievement was the creation of what might be called a circle of sound,” wrote Leonard Feather in the Encyclopedia of Jazz, "a continuum in which no beat of the bar was necessarily indicated by any specific accent, yet the overall feeling became a tremendously dynamic and rhythmically important part of the whole group. Jones moved away from the old concept of swinging toward a newer freedom.” Throughout his life, Elvin Jones never stopped swinging free, and we still can hear the reverberations.