High praise for the low-profile Hank Jones

This article comes from Bill Beuttler of the Boston Globe...

Pianist Hank Jones is the eldest and least well-known of the three great Jones brothers of jazz.

The late Elvin Jones, Hank's junior by nine years, revolutionized jazz drumming in the early 1960s as a member of John Coltrane's legendary quartet. Middle brother Thad, an arranger and composer who died in 1986, made his name playing trumpet with Count Basie in the mid-1950s and cofounding the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra a decade later.

Now 86, Hank was smartly labeled ''the dean of jazz pianists" by the New Yorker a few years ago. Still, his self-effacing manner, his genius as an accompanist, and his deft interpretations of others' compositions have conspired to keep his profile relatively low.
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''I've learned so much playing with him as far as spontaneous orchestration for a quartet," says Lovano. ''He doesn't play a thousand choruses like a lot of people. He's really clear and focused, and he could play two choruses on any given tune and it's as deep as someone else might have to play 10 [to accomplish]." - Joe Lovano on Hank Jones

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