The innovators
Bruce Robinson looks at the lives of Ray Charles and Elvin Jones Two major innovators in African-American music have died in the last few weeks. Pianist and singer Ray Charles (died aged 73) was central to the development of soul music. Elvin Jones (76) transformed jazz drumming and played in John Coltrane's 1960s Quartet which was a major influence on subsequent generations of jazz musicians. Their contrasting but parallel lives show the richness of African-American music in a period of rapid musical - and social - change in the late 50s and 60s. Ray Charles learnt music in a school for the...