Adam Mansbach: There's a famous story about him having a drum battle with -- is it John Bonham? Is that the cat?

Brian Viglione: From Led Zeppelin?

AM: Yeah

BV: Yeah, sure

AM: Yeah. This is documented in the liner notes to the Impulse Elvin Jones, there's a two-record set, if you've ever seen it, on Impulse. There's a whole series of them. They did an Ahmad Jamal one. They do these two-record sets, and they're excerpts from different songs, different album, you know?

BV: Yeah

AM: And the liner notes to this detail how Elvin gave an interview to Downbeat, one of those blindfold tests, in like '69, and inadvertently disses John Bonham -- I'm pretty sure it was John Bonham. They play him some shit and Elvin's quote is something like, "He needs to lose his ass in space, cause he ain't playing shit"

And somehow, this got back to Bonham. I guess they were friends, I don't know. They end up having this battle in London, in some big hall, balconies, standing room only. And Bonham shows up with some huge set, some big-ass rock set with fifteen different kinds of splash cymbals. Elvin's got the four-piece joint, and blows him the fuck away. The end