Jazz Articles about Max Roach

Max Roach / Archie Shepp: The Long March

by Troy Collins
September 16, 2009

Recorded live in concert at the Willisau Jazz Festival on August 30, 1979, The Long March documents another of drummer Max Roach's historic duo collaborations with the leaders of the jazz avant-garde. This stellar date with tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp follows Streams of Consciousness (Piadrum, 1977), with pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, and Birth and Rebirth (Black Saint, 1978), with multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton, predating Historic Concerts (Soul Note, 1979), his meeting with pianist Cecil Taylor, by only a few months. ...

Max Roach: Jazz Contrasts & Introducing Johnny Griffin

by Francis Lo Kee
April 6, 2008

Kenny Dorham Jazz Contrasts (Keepnews Collection) Riverside-Concord 2008 Johnny Griffin Introducing (RVG) Blue Note 2008

These two fantastic recordings feature the great drumming of the late Max Roach. His playing is flawless and demonstrates how a drummer can be both dramatic soloist and sensitive accompanist. Kenny Dorham was ...

Max Roach: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite

by Chris May
October 8, 2007

Re-released following the passing of drummer Max Roach in August 2007, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) remains a work of enduring musical and social importance. Notwithstanding Roach's central role in the creation of bop, or his later hard bop explorations with trumpeter Clifford Brown, it is, by some margin, the most perfectly realised album he recorded. 1960 was the year in which black Americans' struggle for civil rights reached critical mass. In February, anti-segregationist lunch-counter sit-ins ...

A Tribute To Max Roach

by David A. Orthmann
September 17, 2007

Introduction

I can't recall the reason why I picked Percussion Bitter Sweet out of a record store bin in the mid-sixties. It was one of the first recordings I ever purchased. Apart from Max's brilliant drumming and knotty yet accessible compositions, it served as an introduction to iconic musicians like Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, Clifford Jordan, Mal Waldron, Art Davis, and Abbey Lincoln. Several years later, I experienced Max's mastery of the drums in person. Spanning just a portion of ...

Moments with Max

by Nick Catalano
September 7, 2007

The passing of Max Roach will initiate countless reminiscences, retrospectives, and reassessments. With his appearances alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie on “Ko-Ko"--the seminal early bebop release--"The Birth of The Cool" with Miles Davis, and on countless recordings with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and other bop pioneers, Max set a new standard for percussion even before he started his first group with Clifford Brown in 1954.

Soon, writers and music folk everywhere will be recalling incidents from Max's ...

Sonny Rollins: Plus Four

by John Barron
March 2, 2007

Originally released in 1956 on Prestige, Plus Four has been reissued by Concord Records, which recently acquired the Prestige catalogue. On this session a twenty-something Sonny Rollins uses the other musicians in the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet (of which he was a member) as his sidemen. When you consider the personnel, the tunes, and the impending tragic deaths of Clifford Brown and Richie Powell (both were involved in a fatal car crash just months after this recording was made), the ...

Max Roach: Jazz in 3/4 Time

by Samuel Chell
December 25, 2006

At the time of its appearance in 1957, this album, currently part of the limited EmArcy reissue series, was considered somewhat revolutionary due to its all-waltz program. That's become a moot point after all of the triple-meter jazz material that would follow--from “All Blues" to “Waltz for Debby" to “Someday My Prince Will Come." What makes this session essential listening is the masterful solo work, and not simply by Sonny Rollins.

With Clifford Brown gone, trumpeter Kenny Dorham ...