Elvin Jones’s ‘Dear John C.’ Comes To Acoustic Sounds Vinyl Series
The latest release from the series includes renditions of Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington classics.
The Acoustic Sounds Vinyl Series is moving right along with the upcoming release of Elvin Jones’s 1965 album Dear John C. The album represents the drummer’s first album for Impulse! Records as a leader and brings together musicians Charlie Mariano, Roland Hanna, Hank Jones, Richard Davis with production from Bob Thiele. The album officially hits shelves on August 28 and is available for preorder now.
For John C. was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in February of 1965 before it was released later that year. The record brings Jones’s and his fellow musicians interpretations to classics from Charles Mingus (“Love Bird”), Duke Ellington (“Fantazm”), and Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie (“Anthropology”). For John C. also features a recording of the standard “Feeling Good,” originally written for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd and famously recorded by dozens of acts, from Nina Simone to Michael Bublé.
The album’s title is a reference to jazz’s most famous John C.: John Coltrane. Elvin collaborated with Coltrane for years, enjoying a successful, if sometimes slightly contentious relationship. “With Coltrane, if we didn’t have a job here in New York, we were in Chicago or St. Louis or Memphis or wherever. We’d travel all over the country, pile into the station wagon and go off,” Elvin reflected in an interview published years later. “We were all together all the time, because from New York to California-that’s 3,000 miles-takes three days and three nights to make that. We’d go to the jobs, not wait for them to come to us, that’s the difference from today, you know? But it gave us an opportunity to understand each other in ways that are deeper than just being casual.”
Verve’s Acoustic Sounds vinyl series brings a variety of classic jazz records back to the forefront, reissuing them on vinyl. Reissues so far from 2026 have included recordings from Stan Getz, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, and the Oscar Peterson Trio.
