Jazz Articles about Max Roach

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 ...

Bud Powell: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall

by C. Michael Bailey
August 9, 2005

In 1953 the jazz genre called Be Bop, Bop, Re Bop, or Modern Jazz had fully matured and was settling in as the established mainstream rather than the cutting edge movement it had been in the early 1940s. Jazz as a style collective had begun to further fray at the ends and Be Bop gave way to such subtypes as “Cool," “Hard Bop," “Third Stream," and “Soul Jazz," all considered reactions to Be Bop's frenetic, nervous nature. However, on May ...

Max Roach/Abdullah Ibrahim: Streams of Consciousness

by Jerry D'Souza
October 13, 2003

Abdullah Ibrahim, then known as Dollar Brand, went into the studio with Max Roach on September 20, 1977. In his brief but all-encompassing notes, Roach says that there were no rehearsals and no plans as to what they were going to record. Sure, it is said that they were friends, and shared social and cultural backgrounds. Those are good points of reference but there has to be something more: a perspicacity, a feel, anticipation and vision that have to course ...

Duke Ellington: Money Jungle

by Jim Santella
August 1, 2002

The dramatic character of this album’s title track tells you from the start that few trio jam sessions have ever carried so much weight. Recorded in 1962, it brought together three definitive leaders in this field we call jazz. Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach interpreted a program of swinging Ellington material. His “Money Jungle,” “African Flower,” “Very Special” and “Wig Wise” were introduced to the listening public for the first time with this LP. Blue Note ...