No, you are absolutely right...
I remember as yesterday memory because Jones impacted me a lot and at this times at 20 and yet i regarded jazz as inferior to classical music ... i lacked musical education at 20 and i am not alas! a musician ... 😊 now i loved jazz as much as classical...And any traditional music in the world...
But to my surprize at 20, Jones dont put easy previsible beats to express his virtuosity, as many drummers with no genius would, instead he demonstrated his musical understanding of the "rolling" into ONE of all musical aspects in his gesturing.... It was the first time in my life i encounter a really great musician...
He was able to make music "roll"... not rock n and roll AT ALL.... Only subtles variations improvised with the highest artistry...
But as i said rolling is not about a repeateable swing or beat, it is the way the musician creative gesture improvise on the spot by expressive necessity ... Keith Jarrett "roll" his improvisation at Koln concert in one masterpiece for example ...
"rolling" is the integration of melody, rythms, harmonies, IMPROVISING playing micro tonal gestures in ONE single expressive event ...
For example in classical there is difference when some pianist play a piece with no understanding but only perfect reproduction ,or high virtuosity and some others who are able to improvise a real EXPRESSIVE felt interpretation...
When the music "roll" it is beyond perfection or imperfection , it is living...
There is no relation with any musical genre, the african master who tell about "rolling music" to the american black jazzman , does not spoke about african music nor about jazz, it is the way i understood it... A japanese musician playing koto can roll or not...The African master express a universal truth about playing...
" Roll" mean a SPIRAL integrating every aspect of music and sound in one musical gesture... It is IMPREVISIBLE....
Coleman Hawkins know how to "roll" and Sofronitsky playing Scriabin knows too... And pygmies songs "roll"... The last interpretation of choral music i hear and which was "rolling" is Schutz Geistliche Chormusik by Mauesberger... The chorus roll as pygmies singing... Miraculous so much i listen to it really 1000 times in the last 35 years...
OK. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t fully understand what the term means. Reading your descriptions, Elvin Jones happened to be the first artist that sprang to mind.