100 Years of Max Roach

Source: JAZZWAX BY MARC MYERS
January 16, 2024
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Max Roach's birth date could easily be a time signature played by the drummer. Though his birth certificate listed his arrival as January 10, 1924, he told radio historian Phil Schapp that his parents said he was born on January 8. As a result, his birth date is typically given as January 8/10. Last week was his centenary.

Roach would become the first jazz drummer to fully exploit bebop's speed, freedom and form. While keeping time, he'd often drop in unexpected shoves and nudges on the drums—from bass-drum bombs when least expected to a range of sudden polyrhythms on the snare, toms, hi-hats or cymbals. His approach made keeping time more exciting and set the music on edge. Where swing drummers were about crisp, straight-ahead power to keep dancers moving, Roach was about jarring nuance, thumping interruptions and sharp, uneven punctuation.

Back in February 1944, as bebop was just beginning to be documented with the rise of independent record labels, Roach had an uncanny ability to always wind up at jazz turning points. He was the drummer on Coleman Hawkins's proto-bebop recording of Dizzy Gillespie's Woody 'n You on Apollo Records. In June 1945, with bebop formally established, Roach was on drums at the famed Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker Town Hall concert in New York. His revolutionary new approach would set the pace for the new music.

Though Kenny Clarke is considered to be the first to play bebop on drums, Roach was the more pronounced protagonist who gave the music style and attitude. Roach's restless approach demanded to be part of the bebop conversation unfolding on stage or in the studio, not just a beat keeper. Over the course of nearly 60 years, Roach had a staggering career, playing on dozens of recording sessions and with leading groups of varying configurations. All the while, he kept raising the bar on what rhythm's role should be in the new modernist age.

Moving forward in the 1940s, Roach was on a significant number of major recording sessions. Early on, many of them were with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Miles Davis. He also appeared on Davis's “Birth of the Cool" nonet sessions, trumpeter Fats Navarro's recordings and Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell's sessions for Prestige.

In the early 1950s, he continued to record with Parker but also was featured with the Lee Konitz Sextet, which at the time was pioneering cool jazz and even free jazz. Roach can be heard on Gil Melle's avant-garde album New Faces, New Sounds for Blue Note in 1952 and with the Thelonious Monk Sextet that year.

Steering clear of commercial jazz and fiercely competitive, as most great jazz drummers are, Roach wasn't above making his feelings known through his drums. As alto saxophonist Hal McKusick told me about the Charlie Parker and Voices recording session in 1953:

JW: What happened on In the Still of the Night? It starts out almost chaotic.

HM: In the Still of the Night was the first tune we recorded that day. On the first take, Bird counted off the tempo. But Max pushed it way up. I’m guessing it was a competitive thing between Max and Bird. Or Max may have been frustrated by the commercial sound of the date. He also could have been unhappy about his role as just a timekeeper and wanted to test or challenge the singers.

Later that year, Roach popped up in Los Angeles at the start of West Coast Jazz, playing with Chet Baker, Russ Freeman and Howard Rumsey at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Calif. The following year, he co-founded the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, which pioneered hard bop until Brown's death in an auto accident in 1956.

Then Roach began working extensively with Sonny Rollins during the tenor saxophonist's most prolific recording period. Roach also led many of his own groups on recordings. By the late 1950s, he was jazz's most dominant and sophisticated drummer, and the most widely known and respected. In 1959, he was paired with Buddy Rich on a drum-battle album arranged by Gigi Gryce.

From 1960 on, Roach continued to transform the role and sound of the drums by pushing percussion into the foreground with the groups he led. Max Roach died in 2007, at age 83.

Here are 15 clips that only begin to illustrate the innovation that Max Roach brought to the drums...

Here's Dizzy Gillespie's Woody'n You in February 1944, with Roach on drums...

Here's radio DJ Symphony Sid introducing the musicians on bebop's first major live recording in June 1945...

Here's Roach behind Parker, Gillespie (on piano and trumpet) and bassist Curly Russell on the blazingly fast Ko-Ko in 1945, which was based on the chord changes to Cherokee...

Here's Roach on Miles Davis's lyrical Milestones, with Davis on trumpet, Parker on tenor saxophone, John Lewis on piano and Nelson Boyd on bass in 1947. Three takes were needed, with take No. 2 chosen as the master...

Here's Roach with Sonny Stitt (ts), Bud Powell (p) and Curly Russell (d) recording All God's Chillun' Got Rhythm in 1949...

Here's the Lee Konitz Sextet's recording of George Russell's Ezz-thetic in 1951, with Miles Davis (tp), Lee Konitz (as), Sal Mosca (p), Billy Bauer (g), Arnold Fishkin (b) and Max Roach (d)...

Here's the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet on Parisian Thoroughfare in 1954, with Clifford Brown (tp), Harold Land (ts), Richie Powell (p,arr), George Morrow (b) and Max Roach (d)...

Here's Herbie Nichols's Nick at T's in 1955, with Herbie Nichols (p), Al McKibbon (b) and Max Roach (d)...

Here's Strode Rode in 1956, with Sonny Rollins (ts), Tommy Flanagan (p), Doug Watkins (b) and Max Roach (d)...

Here's Filide in 1958, with Booker Little (tp), George Coleman (ts), Ray Draper (tu), Art Davis (b) and Max Roach (d)...

Here's Big Foot in 1959, with two quintets: Buddy Rich Quintet—-Willie Dennis (tb), Phil Woods (as), John Bunch (p), Phil Leshin (b) and Buddy Rich (d) and a Max Roach Quintet—-Tommy Turrentine (tp), Julian Priester (tb), Stanley Turrentine (ts), Bobby Boswell (b) and Max Roach (d,perc); Gigi Gryce (arr,cond)...