5727 33rd Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105
Gregg Keplinger: Confessions of an Elvin Jones Addict
Interview by Jason West
Gregg Keplinger is a man of few words, except when the subject is Elvin Jones. Like Elvin, Keplinger eats, breathes, and plays drums. A self-proclaimed rock n roll/r&b drummer, Keplinger has toured with numerous Seattle rock bands (Soundgarden, Built to Spill, Sunny Day Real Estate) as a drum tech. He even builds drums in his modest University District home. Elvin plays a Keplinger-made snare. Gregg's kit is almost identical to Elvin's. Both men share the same approach to drumming: Put it in gear, and step on the gas.
A fiftysomething Seattle native, Keplinger has heard Elvin play hundreds of times; he never misses a chance to see his friend and idol perform. In April, Elvin's group, the Jazz Machine, played six nights at Jazz Alley. Gregg was there each night but one. That night, he instead chose to walk around Greenlake, grab a bite to eat, and talk about Elvin Jones. As we approached the lake the evening sun was setting and, suddenly yet naturally, a bald eagle flew close overhead.
Gregg Keplinger: One year I saw Elvin and they had just come from Japan. The whole band was really tired; and he played so differently because his energy wasn't up, but it was still brilliant; it was amazing to watch. It was like seeing a different side of him. I loved it. I mean, on a bad night, the guy's brilliant, so whatever. But I never would say he had a bad night, as long as I've heard him. And I go there to hear him. He's always awesome.
Jason West: So what was that like, when you say "another side?"
GK: Just his approach, his energy wasn't there. He didn't have the fluidity in his playing. It was just a different vibe; it was really weird and exciting to watch. I've been listening to Elvin thirtysome years, and I'd never heard that approach, so it was like hearing a new thing. But every time he's in (town) with different guys, and I've heard him enough now where I can hear the difference in his approach in relation to the other players.
JW: Well, talk about that. Does he give them a lot of room?
GK: I call it note value: just how it feels, how a guy plays off of his feel. Like this bass player he has now (Steve Kirby), they just have the same amount of breath. It's like breathing; they breathe the same length.
JW: You've been listening to Elvin for thirty years?
GK: Well, since I was fourteen.
JW: So how did you get into it?
GK: When I started playing drums, a friend of mine gave me an album called, "The Soul of Jazz Percussion" (Warwick, 1960) and it was Barry Harris and Elvin and a bass player. It was a drum compilation. It was just insane. I was just learning. I'd sit up in my room on Saturdays and practice on my pad; and I was really trying to do stuff I could hear but I couldn't play.
So, I was sitting there and all of a sudden they played "Out of This World" off of the Coltrane album, that blue one with the close-up of his face, and man, that was it for me. Like Gregorian Chant. I went to Catholic grade school, and I used to just trip on the music. And "Out of This World" is a real modal tune, it just kind of floats along.
JW: Was anyone playing like that at the time?
GK: No, but part of it though, for me it was the sound, man, I loved the sound of Elvin's drums. Same with like Led Zeppelin, I love the sound of John Bonham's drums, just the stuff he played, the way he approached it. It just fit.
JW: Since then, has Elvin's playing changed a lot?
GK: Oh yeah. Well, you get older, you've got to conserve, you learn how to use...
JW: But still, he's got a lot of energy...
GK: Tons...but when he was in his thirties or forties. I saw him in '73--I don't know how old he was--but I was totally blown away. Nobody, I've never heard anybody play like that since. But when he was playing with Coltrane, that was a whole different world. I mean, nobody ever played like that either. Talk about exciting. It's kind of amazing that Coltrane wanted that, or anybody; it's super loud, super intense.
JW: I read that when Elvin was coming up in Detroit, there was a real community of players, and that seemed to have carried over into Coltrane's band, because there were some sympathetic players who wanted to play that way.
GK: Well I think the whole scene evolved around it; I mean the civil rights thing in the sixties; socially stuff was changing so fast, and he was saying something, he just evolved to that intense level.
JW: Elvin or Coltrane?
GK: All of them. You know, I don't think any of them could have done it (alone). Coltrane kind of went on into that freer kind of thing, but he couldn't have done it without Elvin paving the way. Elvin just didn't like playing with two drummers, so he quit. And to me, I mean, I don't know what the vibe was, but man, it sounded so cool, that dense, weaving, cyclical stuff with those two guys--Rashied Ali and Elvin. Awesome man, awesome. Of course they had two bass players, two of everything except piano. It took me a long time to learn how to listen to that stuff.
JW: Yeah, I remember when you told me to get "Sunship" (Impulse, 1966). I'd asked you what to get, so I bought that and I thought, "Man, I can't listen to this shit. It's just way over my head, too powerful for me."
GK: That (Sunship) is intense, man. When I first started listening to "Ascension" I could get into it for maybe fifteen minutes, and then I'd have to go have a brain enigma.
JW: But now you prefer listening to two albums at once.
GK: Yeah, I love that. I'm doing that more and more. Hendrix and Coltrane. "What would it have been like if Hendrix and Coltrane had played together?" "Well, like this!" I'm going for three next. (laughter) No, it's really fun because you get that kind of thing...you know how when you slip on ice and you almost fall, that's the feeling I get when two...you know, you're synched up and all of a sudden it just pulls away from you; it kind of makes your stomach flip.
JW: I know you like to get into the stuff you were raised on, the rockabilly and sixties rock and roll. Do you think Elvin would dig that kind of thing?
GK: Oh yeah. I mean, listen to "Midnight Walk" (Atlantic, '66). I remember the first time I heard that, it was kind of like a backbeat shuffle, which he plays occasionally. He's doing this shuffle feel, so it makes sense that he was playing that before he began playing this stretched-out stuff.
JW: What's his personality like?
GK: Well, he's really gentle, and he's funny--super smart. Bright guy. Kind of childlike, a lot of joy.
JW: For a seventy-one year old guy, he's a real young seventy-one.
GK: Oh man, and smart as all get out. Nothing gets past him, I'm telling you.
JW: Must be in pretty damn good shape too.
GK: Oh Judas. Yeah, the guy, you know....I was telling some guys the other night about when I saw Coltrane. I mean they all walked right by me, I could have touched them, they were so close; and I couldn't say anything, I was so freaked out. It just was so, so intense. I've never heard anything since.
JW: Was that in Seattle?
GK: Yeah, "Live in Seattle" (Impulse, '65). The funny thing to me is the heaviest album on earth was recorded in this sleepy little burg.
JW: Which recordings would you recommend as a start for young drummers interested in Elvin?
GK: I don't know, some of that post-bop stuff is cool. But I never was into that stuff too much. I was into the swing thing--Krupa--and then I went right to Elvin. It's always smart to start with something you can hear or understand or grasp. I like the Coltrane album that's blue. I don't know, it depends on what guys are doing. The Africa/Brass Sessions (Impulse, '61) are cool. A lot of Elvin on that. One album that's a favorite of mine is "Kulu Se Mama" (Impulse, '65). I never hear anybody talking about it or anything.
JW: There must a whole Elvin school of drumming.
GK: Yeah, there's a definite feel, an approach to the time. He's a pioneer.
JW: Who would fall into that school?
GK: Roy Haynes. And I suppose a lot of guys...I was just down at Tower, in the listening station, and they've got (a recording of) this guy Smiley Winters--never heard of him--from San Francisco; he died a few years ago.
JW: Smiley Winters?
GK: Yeah, Bert Wilson and Barbara Donald are playing with him ("Smiley, Etc." Arhoolie, '69). This guy is really a cool drummer, and I'd never heard of him. He had that whole thing going on, the time thing, where he
widens the time.
JW: Was it in front of the beat or in back of it?
GK: All of them. (laughter).
JW: All of them?
GK: No, it's just...well, with Elvin, he pushes and pulls. He can push the band here and pull it back here. You listen to the Joe Farrell stuff with him and he does that, just stomping on the band. I mean it's amazing how he packs the stuff. His time is so beautiful. But yeah, in the sixties there were guys doing that. I think Roy Haynes was one of the other guys who as pretty into that cyclical kind of time, playing in cycles and moving in and out, or time over time, layering stuff--however you want to say it.
JW: I imagine the scene has changed quite a bit since then. How would you rate the jazz scene in Seattle today?
GK: Seattle, Judas. Yeah, go play in some club where there's a restaurant upstairs and you've got to shut up anyway, I mean, who needs it? To me, I hear stuff in my head loud, I think it loud--or exciting, or intense or dense. I'm not saying guys (in Seattle) can't play, but it doesn't excite me, just the style that they're forced to play. How's that for a diplomatic statement.
JW: I know what you're saying.
GK: Yeah, everybody that's playing can play. There's some awesome musicians in Seattle. But if you want to play, you've got to go to some yuppie little bar, non-smoking environment, and schming, schming. What's with that? Who want's that? I miss the days when people were screaming and yelling. It was jazz church. Stuff's changed, man. I mean...people don't like that.
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