Max Roach RIP

[Nou Dadoun]

I've heard a couple of reports that Max Roach died this morning in a nursing home in Brooklyn. I'm sure there'll be more details later in the day ... N

[Brian Nation]

Steve Smith, Associate Music Editor for Time Out New York, has an item (http://nightafternight.blogs.com/night_after_night/2007/08/max-roach-19242.html).

There's a tribute underway on WKCR (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/).

Listen to the stream (http://kanga.college.columbia.edu:8000/listen.pls).

[Ron Hearn]

http://www.nysun.com/article/60698

[Morgan Childs]

If I had to pick just one... its Max. He was the greatest.

[Gavin Walker]

When I've played the Massey Hall recording on the radio I always said that Max Roach was the surviving member of that illustrious ensemble, but as of today, I sadly cannot. Max will soon be rejoining Bird, Dizzy, Bud and Mingus but here on Earth he will never be equalled or replaced. Rest in peace Mr. Roach.

[Allan Johnston]

I remember seeing Max on a double bill with Elvin Jones at the Keystone Korner in SF in the early 80's. Max did his famous hi-hat solo for an encore...amazing. Thank goodness, he left us with a vast recorded legacy we'll have forever.

RIP, Max...

Allan

[Nou Dadoun]

Max's two last visits to Vancouver were presented by CJBS, the former in 1988 with the quartet and the latter in 1989 with the double quartet. He enjoyed playing the Cultch so much that CJBS later presented Sonny Rollins at the Cultch on Max's recommendation. Here are a couple of on-line reviews I wrote at the time:


Review: Max Roach at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre Mar 27,28 1988

Max Roach brought his current quartet Cecil Bridgewater (trumpet), Odean Pope
(tenor) and Tyrone Brown (electric stand-up bass) to town for two sold-out
nights. The majority of the audience was there because of Max Roach's
history (as opposed to those who are keen on the current quartet or even
the double quartet) but after the show everyone was a believer that Max
today is as strong, energetic and innovative as he was when he started his
professional career with the Benny Carter Orchestra in 1944.

Max's flight was due to arrive at 3 pm with lots of time to
get ready for an 8 pm show. His trip started in Pittsburgh, stopped in
Chicago, then San Jose ending in Vancouver. The reason for this is somewhat odd;
flight schedules are cheaper with 'return tickets' so it's to your advantage to
trace out your trip once and keep returning. The flight in
Chicago was delayed so the connection in San Jose was missed. The next
flight available was due to arrive at 8:30 and Max agreed to go on with
the show. The band took their instruments on board (the drums were at the
hall) and would pick up their luggage later. The flight finally arrived at
9:30 (deregulation, anyone?) and after racing across town the show started
at 10:30.

The band had been on the road for about 20 hours, but they were eager and
energetic and so was the audience. Max went out and took his place at the
kit in darkness, a single spot shot out and he began his rhythmic pyrotechnics.
He started with three short solo pieces. The first was frenetic with different
independent rhythms; if the drum kit is the most successful instrument
conceived and designed in the 20th century, Max Roach had no small part in
its development. Four limbs moving seemingly independently, creating
a combinatorial explosion of beats and back-beats. The second piece
"The Drum Also Waltzes" uses a basic waltz 3/4 time on the bass drum and
hi-hat, and draws out the palette of tones on the toms, snare, and cymbals.
His arms start with call and response sequences on the different drums,
build through alternating rolls, into a wash on the cymbals only to stop
and let the waltz reassert itself, twice more. A third solo drum piece starts
slows builds in intensity and an abrupt end is caught on a sweep of
Tyrone Brown's bass.


From here the band moves straight into a bluenote groove with Nommo; an old
Jimmy Merritt/Lee Morgan tune rife with melodic hooks and false endings.
The horns play a tag team; towards the ends of Cecil Bridgewater's trumpet
solos Odean Pope counterpoints an obliggato on the tenor and vice versa.
Many tenor players use circular breathing sparingly as a 'trick' they trot out
for increased effect; Pope uses it as a matter of course. Nommo is followed
by unsentimental (read burning) renditions of In A Sentimental Mood and
Round Midnight. The evening ended with an extended (about an hour) version
of Bridgewater's composition Scott Free [check out the version on Soulnote].
Max came back with the Papa Jo Jones story and Mr. HiHat for an encore
leaving everybody exhausted but satisfied after midnight.


The band was so tired that they played at top intensity just to keep going.
As well, there was no time for a sound check so the horns couldn't hear
themselves or each other; there was room for improvement and improve they
did for the next night.


The next night started with the same three solo drum pieces but this time
the bass swept into Effie with another warm-up groove. Then they slid into
an uptempo Round Midnight, a beautiful tune which has suffered in recent
years from too many maudlin uninspired performances [check out Joe Jackson's on
That's The Way I Feel Now for how not to play a Monk tune]. Roach's
performance stretches the framework of the tune across a different tempo and
reinvents it. After the horns solo, Tyrone takes an amazing bass solo with
incredible slides and double lines. Brown plays a Barchetti stand-up electric
bass which looks like a regular bass with Occam's Razor applied to it; all
non-essentials have been cut away. Max takes a solo across the changes with
the tune's head played on the cymbals accentuated by Brown's bass.
Max then tells a Charlie Parker story and launches into a breakneck version
of Ray Noble's Cherokee. Pope really uses the circular breathing to full
effect here building chorus after chorus of lightning bop phrases, no wonder
he got lost a couple of times in the changes. Bridgewater played Miles
to Brown's Curley Russell and Max's Max took out the tune and the set.


As they filed back on for the second set, Cecil lagged behind and started
blowing loud piercing phrases from the wings. As he took centre-stage,
Summertime filled the air and Cecil continued his solo with some of the
best Bubber Miley-inspired growl and gutbucket I've heard in years.
Odean followed that up with some real honking R&B tenor out of the
Red Prysock/Gator Jackson/King Curtis mold. The set continued with
Duke Jordan's Jordu (a request apparently), Mr. HiHat, and In A Sentimental
Mood. At one point, Cecil played an extended solo on his mouthpiece
which conjured up some conversation, some teasing, some foreplay and some
real passion. The evening ended with a blaze on a tune I didn't recognize
but which I'm told is on the Chattanooga Red album.


Backstage after both shows, Max took the time to greet fans warmly.
He had time for everyone from fledgeling drummers to one-time
acquaintances ("don't you remember, Cecil Taylor brought you to my
apartment on 62nd street once in 1965?"), from colleagues (Julian
Priester drove up from Seattle and Max asked him to write a piece
for the double quartet) to autograph hounds holding copies
of old Emarcy albums (Brown-Roach Incorporated), Candid albums (Freedom
Now - We Insist with the lunchcounter cover), Jazz at Massey Hall etc.


I asked Max about a recent Kodo drummers collaboration and apparently he went to Japan and
stayed on the island for a couple of weeks while working on the piece.
Only a portion of Macrame was performed apparently, the entire piece is
about an hour and a quarter and there are currently no plans to record it.
I told him about Marcel's review and the net and he was impressed with the
speed with which we could find out about these things (and amused when
I described Marcel as a friend I'd never met).


All in all two stellar evenings.


"Back in the 40's, there was Bird, Miles, Curley and me and we'd do
9 shows a night, 40 minutes on and 20 minutes off. The first show of the
night was always slow, maybe two or three people. Charlie Parker
never practiced except when he was playing and he always started off that
first show with some incredible bebop tune at some ridiculous tempo.
Miles and I would always practice all day just to get ready for that
first tune............" - Max Roach

[I now have a recording of the second concert and I played the Charlie Parker story and the version of Cherokee on the A-Trane this afternoon.]


Review: The Max Roach Double Quartet Tuesday, Nov. 14th 1989 7 pm and 10 pm


For those who aren't familiar with the Max Roach Double Quartet, it is
the Max Roach project which combines his regular working quartet
(Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet, Odean Pope on tenor and Tyrone Brown on
electric stand-up bass) with (what is now called) The Uptown String
Quartet (Lesa Terry & Diane Monroe on violins, Maxine Roach on viola
and Eileen Folson on cello). On this particular evening, Diane Monroe
was called back to New York for an orchestra concert; she was replaced
by Kathleen Thomas who performed admirably considering she was
unfamiliar with much of the music. If you're unfamiliar with Max
Roach, there's not much I can say, consult any reputable jazz
reference book under the headings Living Legend, Perpetual Musical
Innovation, or The Use of Percussion in Contemporary Improvised Music.


Due to Vancouver's location on the left coast, many tours tend to
begin or end here; in Roach's case, it was the final night of a tour
which began six weeks ago in South America passing through Europe
(including a week in Spain) ending on the West Coast. So the band was
ready to play. The Double Quartet did two shows (at 7 pm and 10 pm)
each of which clocked in at just under two hours. Along the way, they
managed to play (almost) every tune on both double quartet albums
[Easy Winners & Bright Moments, both on Soul Note] (the exception was
A Little Booker, the tribute to Booker Little), many of the tunes on
the Uptown String Quartet album, some older quartet pieces and some
unrecorded double quartet pieces.


As far as the Uptown String Quartet goes, I think that Kronos has
nothing to worry about. It's possible that they were a little shaken
from the line-up change but the quartet by itself seemed nervous and
suffered some timing problems on Scott Joplin's Easy Winners and Oscar
Pettiford's Tricotism.


However, when they were merged into the grandeur of the Double Quartet
there were no such problems. I was a little worried that the set-up
might be too restrictive for some serious blowing (having heard
disappointing reports about the show at the Chicago Jazz Festival) but
my fears were laid to rest almost immediately.


The first show seemed a bit more formal than the second, it started
with a Roach solo piece that whetted the audience's appetite and he
was then joined by the rest of the double quartet. They played in
various configurations pulling tunes from Roach's inexhaustible
repertoire. Only one tune was repeated in both shows; in the first
show the (standard) quartet did a version of Tricotism which segued
into a string quartet rendition. In the second set there was only the
string quartet version. The show ended with an encore of the Papa Jo
Jones story and Mr. HiHat.


Initially, they were going to start the second show the same way,
but then said, "hey, it's the last show, let's all go out". They
started the second set with an unrecorded piece called the Elixir
Suite (based on the Odean Pope composition Elixir
from the Saxophone Choir album [Soul Note]). They then slid
continuously through another three pieces without a word.


This was the kind of evening that had so many highlights that it's
difficult to describe. DQ performances of Cavalry a composition based
(as Roach put it) on a plantation work song, Roland Kirk's Bright
Moments, Steve Turre's Double Delight, Pope's Sis (a personal
favorite), and Cecil Bridgewater's hommage to Duke and Mingus called
Tribute.


Along the way, Odean did some hard blowing, slipping into a gruff riff
from his composition Mwalimu into a hard-bop quartet rendition of
Neophilia. Odean used the circular breathing to good advantage on a
truncated (~20 min.) rendition of Bridgewater's Scott Free.
Bridgewater again was simply superb and Tyrone Brown was (as he was
last time) outstanding with a solid chunky bass sound. He was
actually helping out the Uptowns at times surreptitiously
doubling the cello lines on the bass. Any one of these three
performers has the instrumental and compositional strength to lead
their own group, the fact that they choose to work with Max Roach is a
testament to fact that Max never stands still, he's always pushing the
music forward.


The second show ended with the Uptown's Tricotism and the Double
Quartet returned for an last encore - Randy Weston's Hi-Fly.


I had an opportunity to ask some questions after the show. The
entire 6-week tour was recorded on a portable DAT, so you can expect
some live recordings to appear sometime next year. Odean Pope is
going into the studio later in the year for another Saxophone Choir
recording. He has no plans to follow up the trio project with Cornell
Rochester and Gerald Veasley [highly recommended: Almost Like Me on
Moers Music].


All in all some bright moments to liven up a rainy west coast
November.

"Wasn't it raining last time I was here?" - MR

=====


Unfortunately, live recordings of this tour were never released. In fact, with the exception of a recording with Clark Terry in 2002, his recorded output practically disappeared a couple of years after these shows. Max's vitality at all these shows (in the latter half of his sixties) was awe-inspiring and makes it even harder to believe that he's gone.

N.

[Gregg Simpson]

I will be playing excerpts from the VEEC concert recorded on March 18, 1988. I have no idea who taped it, but it's so great, I think it should be heard.

Every time one of these great drummers passes it is a physical loss. When I was learning, I incorporated something from each opf the masters: Max, Blakey, Philly Joe, Elvin and Tony. Let's hope Roy Haynes keeps going strong.

But in doing this, you internalize aspects of their energy into your own system and so when they go, a part of you goes too.

My Max Roach tribute show will be next Thursday at 4pm on www.artisanradio.com

[Nou Dadoun]

I received this through a mailing list and I've seen it reproduced in several places now including jazztimes and the jazzhouse web sites. The author is Tom Reney, host of the Jazz Ã* la Mode program on 88.5 WFCR in Amherst, MA, quite a moving evocation of Max's Funeral.

=====

I attended Max Roach's funeral on Friday at The Riverside Church in New York City. It was scheduled from 11 a.m.-1 p.m., and it more than honored Max's flawless sense of time as it began precisely at 11 and, notwithstanding numerous tributes and musical interludes, ended at 1:10. The church was filled to capacity with over 2000 in attendance and an overflow crowd outside on Riverside Drive.

Speakers included Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Lt. Gov. David Paterson, Congressman Charlie Rangel, Bill Cosby, Stanley Crouch, Sonia Sanchez, Phil Schaap, and the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, whose invocation suggested that Max had "modulated from time to eternity." The Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts gave the eulogy. These were interspersed with music by trios featuring Cecil Bridgewater, Billy Harper, and Reggie Workman; Gary Bartz, Harper and Workman; Cassandra Wilson, Bridgewater, and Tyrone Brown; and solos by Randy Weston, Billy Taylor, and Jimmy Heath, who played "There'll Never Be Another You" on soprano saxophone. The soprano Elvira Green sang "City Called Heaven" and "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." A brief documentary of Max's tour of Israel in 2001 was screened, and a video monitor displayed a succession of photos of him. Max's drum stool and high hat were placed prominently on the altar; no other drummers played during the funeral.

The speakers wove elements of humor, awe and poignance in their tributes. Maya Angelou described Max as "dedicated, disciplined, and daring." Poets Baraka and Sanchez each testified to Max's musical genius and political courage in bold, staccato verse. Baraka's poem called the names of numerous drummers who are in Max's debt, and Sanchez riffed on how beautifully he embodied the name Max.

Bill Cosby has long credited Max with making him pursue a career as a comic. Initially, Cos had wanted to be a drummer. He'd spent $75 for a kit, and he gained a sense of how certain things were done from seeing Vernell Fournier (with Ahmad Jamal) and Art Blakey, but once he saw Max, he gave up in frustration. Later, when he'd become famous and finally met Max, he said, "You owe me $75!" Cosby recounted how impressed he and his homeboys from the Philly projects were with Max's sartorial elegance. When they spotted him wearing a blue blazer with a crest, one of them said, "Max must have a boat!" He also noted that "Brooks Brothers must have sold a ton of suits" once Max and Miles and other jazz icons began wearing them in the 1950's. [As you may know, Brooks now outfits Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, in addition to commissioning CD's from LCJO which they sell exclusively through their stores.]

Phil Schaap talked about Max as a man of sensitivity and strength. Of the special interest that many jazz musicians have in boxing, he noted that Max related it to power. Schaap, the jazz radio legend of WKCR in New York, and a close personal friend of Max's, said that when they listened to records together in these past few years, Max would often ask Phil to put on "Strong Man," the Oscar Brown, Jr. song he recorded with Abbey Lincoln in 1959. Schaap also described the wounds that Max suffered and carried through the years, of racism and widespread Klan terror in the decade of Max's birth in North Carolina; the early death of Max's only brother; and the devastating deaths of trumpeters Clifford Brown and Booker Little, at ages 25 in 1956, and 23 in 1961, respectively.

Charlie Rangel read a letter from Bill Clinton, who praised Max for inspiring future generations of artists by "aligning" his music with the civil rights movement and "promoting ideals of quality and justice." Lt. Governor Paterson placed Max in a lineage of black heroes including Harriett Tubman, Paul Robeson, and Malcolm X. The Reverend Butts invoked "The Holy Ghost" as a likely source of Max's extraordinary musicianship; a sense of "righteous indignation" as a guiding force of his activism; and voiced certainty that Max is now "in that number."

Among those I saw in attendance were Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes, Cicely Tyson, Chico Hamilton, Odeon Pope, Avery Sharpe, Fred Tillis, Yusef Lateef, Sheila Jordan, Harold Mabern, Rufus Reid, Steve Turre, and former New York Mayor David Dinkins.



Tom Reney
"Jazz Ã* la Mode"
Monday-Friday, 8-11 p.m.

WFCR 88.5 FM
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