Roy Haynes, George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 (2009) — Newport, Rhode Island
Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925) is an American jazz drummer.[1] He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jazz drumming. "Snap Crackle" was a nickname given to him in the 1950s.[2]
Haynes has led bands such as the Hip Ensemble.[1] His albums Fountain of Youth[3] and Whereas[4] were nominated for a Grammy Award.[5][6] He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1999.[7] His son Graham Haynes is a cornetist; another son Craig Holiday Haynes and grandson Marcus Gilmore are both drummers.[8]
Career
Haynes performing in San Francisco, 1981
Haynes was born in the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts, to Gustavas and Edna Haynes, immigrants from the Barbados.[9] A younger brother, Michael E. Haynes, became an important leader in the black community of Massachusetts, working with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, representing Roxbury in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and for forty years serving as pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church, where King had been a member while he pursued his doctoral degree at Boston University.[10]
Haynes made his professional debut in 1942 in his native Boston, and began his full-time professional career in 1945.[11] From 1947 to 1949 he worked with saxophonist Lester Young,[9] and from 1949 to 1952 was a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's quintet.[9] He also recorded at the time with pianist Bud Powell and saxophonists Wardell Gray and Stan Getz.[9] From 1953 to 1958, he toured with singer Sarah Vaughan and recorded with her.[12][13]
A tribute song was recorded by Jim Keltner and Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones,[14] and he appeared on stage with the Allman Brothers Band in 2006[15] and Page McConnell of Phish in 2008.[16] "Age seems to have just passed him by," Watts observed. "He's eighty-three and in 2006 he was voted Best Contemporary Jazz Drummer [in Modern Drummer magazine's readers' poll]. He's amazing."[17]
In 2008, Haynes lent his voice to the open-world video game Grand Theft Auto IV, to voice himself as the DJ for the fictional classic jazz radio station, Jazz Nation Radio 108.5.[18]
Haynes is known to celebrate his birthday on stage, in recent years at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City.[19] In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, his 95th birthday celebration was cancelled.[20]
Awards and honors
A Life in Time –The Roy Haynes Story was named by The New Yorker magazine as one of the Best Boxed Sets of 2007[21] and was nominated for an award by the Jazz Journalist's Association.[22]
WKCR-FM, New York,[23] surveyed Haynes's career in 301 hours of programming, January 11–23, 2009.[24]
In 1994, Haynes was awarded the Danish Jazzpar prize, and in 1996 the French government knighted him with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's top literary and artistic honor.[5] In 1995, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts named Haynes as a NEA Jazz_Master.[25] Haynes received honorary doctorates from the Berklee College of Music (1991),[26] and the New England Conservatory (2004),[27] as well as a Peabody Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, in 2012.[28] He was inducted into the DownBeat magazine Hall of Fame in 2004.[29] On October 9, 2010, he was awarded the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation's BNY Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.[30]
^Levenson, Michael (September 13, 2019). "The Rev. Michael Haynes, who made an impact across the state, dies at 92". Boston Globe. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
^"Roy Haynes". Yamaha. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
^Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (1999). "Haynes, Roy Owen". The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 306.
^ a bStephenson, Sam (December 2003). "Jazzed About Roy Haynes". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
^"Hittin' the Note - 2006". Archived from the original on 2008-08-20. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
^"Roy Haynes with Page McConnell and Jon Fishman from Phish - photographic image". 13 August 2008. Archived from the original on 13 August 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
^Lawrence, Will (May 2008). "King Charles". Q. No. 262. p. 44.
^"Roy Haynes". IMDb. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
^"Roy Haynes". DrummerWorld. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
^Shteamer, Hank (March 13, 2020). "Flashback: Roy Haynes Journeys From Free Jazz to Bebop at the White House". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
^"Top CD Boxed Sets of 2007". The New Yorker. 18 November 2007. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
^"Jazz Journalists Association: Jazz Awards: 2008". JazzHouse. Retrieved March 10, 2022.