text:
Home People Literature and the Arts Music: Popular and Jazz: Biographies Max Roach
Roach, Max
Contemporary Black Biography
Jazz drummer, composer, educator
Jazz drummer, composer, educator Jazz drummer Max Roach expanded the boundaries of his art. He raised the profile of percussion within American music and served as a pioneer in using his craft as a method for socio-political advocacy for the African-American experience. Following in the musical footsteps of Big Sid Catlett and Kenny Clarke, Roach—as a member of bands led by such notable talents as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie—further developed the art of modern jazz drumming. Widely recognized as one of the founders of bebop or modern jazz, Roach refused to recognize such terms in reference to an African-American art form he believed was prejudicially named by those outside the musical community. Described by music writers as a "melodic drummer," Roach retained, within his solo work, logical constructions built creatively around the composition. As a drummer, educator, composer, and political activist, Roach looked to music as a liberating voice. Roach's use of drums and percussion instruments in orchestral ensemble, the integration of non-standard time signatures, and projects involving rap performers, kept him at the forefront of change within jazz and African-American music for more than six decades. His virtuosity as a percussionist set new standards and enriched American music.
Neighborhood Sounds Formed Musical Education Foundation
Maxwell Lemuell Roach was born in Newland, North Carolina, on January 10, 1924. At the age of four, Roach moved with his family to the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn. Roach's mother, a gospel singer, took him to church regularly and it was there that he received his first musical instruction on trumpet and piano. Roach studied keyboard harmony at age eight with his aunt and, within a year, played piano in the summer Bible school of the Concord Baptist Church. Roach's interest in music was heightened by the sounds of his Brooklyn neighborhood. "You could walk down the street; you heard people singing, you heard people playing," he recalled in Ira Gitler's book Swing to Bop. "The community was just fraught with music."
Introduced to the drums in high school, Roach joined the school marching band. By listening to radio shows and recordings, he heard the drumming of Jo Jones and swing drummer "Big" Sid Catlett, who recorded with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on such influential bebop numbers as "Salt Peanuts." Along with high school friends such as trumpeter Leonard Hawkins and saxophonist Cecil Payne, Roach listened to the latest jazz bands at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Playing in Brooklyn rehearsal bands, he read stock arrangements from the band books of Count Basie and Jimmie Lunceford. On weekends at Coney Island, he performed in the Darktown Follies and accompanied eighteen different acts in one day.
Local jam sessions became the main outlet for the development of Roach's rhythmic ideas. At these fiercely competitive exchanges, Roach's drum technique began to deviate from the standard swing patterns of the period. While still a teenager, Roach often wore a penciled mustache in order to appear old enough to attend after-hours jam sessions at Harlem nightclubs like Monroe's Uptown House on 138th Street and Minton's Playhouse located in the dining room of the Hotel Cecil on 118th Street. At Minton's Roach encountered the house band's innovative drummer, Kenny Clarke, a Brooklyn neighbor who provided him with insight concerning technique and career opportunities. Years later, Clarke recounted in Klook: The Story of Kenny Clarke, how he "persuaded," Roach "to study at Julliard so that he could acquire the knowledge to become an all-around musician and do studio work and everything." At this time, Roach also received encouragement from Big Sid Catlett. As Roach told Burt Korall in Drummin' Men, "I didn't hear that much of Big Sid, except on records, apart from the little I heard on 52nd Street, but I was influenced by his kindness, his generosity."
Gained Reputation with Finest Bands of the Day
When most of the experienced jazz drummers left New York to serve in the armed forces during World War II, Roach's musical reputation and his ability to read music allowed him to find employment with some of the finest bands of the day. At age sixteen he played three nights at the Paramount Theatre with Duke Ellington's Orchestra, filling in for the ailing Sonny Greer. In Ira Gitler's Jazz Masters of the Forties Roach explained how "I had no rehearsal. The stage came up and I was sitting on Sonny's drums all about me. I followed Duke—his conducting was so hip while he played the piano."
After graduating from Boys High School with full honors in 1942, Roach played regular jobs with white groups, and in the evenings sought out more progressive sounds at Monroe's and Minton's. At these latenight club dates, he established a name for himself as one of the formidable "up-and-coming" modern jazzmen. In 1944, Gillespie and bassist Oscar Pettiford hired Roach for their group based at the Onyx on Fifty-Second Street. From the Onyx, Gillespie booked Roach and several members of a new group across the street at the Down Beat.
At a Glance …
Born Maxwell Lemuel Roach, January 10, 1924, in Newland, North Carolina; married Mildred (divorced); Anne Marie "Abbey" Lincoln, married 1962 (divorced 1970); married Janus Adams (divorced); children: Ayodele, Dara, Daryl, Maxine, Raoul. Education: Manhattan School of Music, BA, music composition. Religion: Muslim.
Career : Harlem, various jam sessions, musician, 1942; recorded first session with Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie, 1944; Benny Cater's Band, 1944; Parker-Gillespie quintet, member, 1944; recorded with Stan Getz, 1946; Charlie Parker's group, member, 1946-53; recorded with Miles Davis for Birth of the Cool sessions, 1949; co-founded Debut Record Company, 1952-57; formed a quintet with trumpeter Clifford Brown, 1954-56; worked and recorded with Sonny Rollins, 1956-58; worked with wife and vocalist Abbey Lincoln, 1960s; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, instructor, 1971; M'Boom percussion section, founder, 1972; recorded with Anthony Braxton and Abdullah Abrahim, 1980s; Bluemoon Records, record producer, 1980s; Jazz Institute, artistic director, 1980s; Max Roach's Double Quartet, founder, 1982; So What Brass Band, founder, 1990s.
Awards : Grand Prix International Du Disque 1977; NEA Jazz Master Award, 1984; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship Award, 1988; The Composer/ Reader's Digest Commissioning Program Grant, 1988; Grammy Hall of Fame, inductee, 1995.
In February of 1944 Roach, through the intercession of Dizzy Gillespie, made his recording debut with veteran swing saxophonist Coleman Hawkins on the Keynote label. In the company of Hawkins, Gillespie and other talents such as Budd Johnson and Oscar Pettiford, Roach contributed to the numbers "Disorder at the Border," "Feeling Zero," and "Rainbow Mist." One of the first big-name musicians to hire Roach, Hawkins also nurtured the talents of a number of young modern jazzmen. In the liner notes to Giants of Jazz: Coleman Hawkins, Roach considered Hawkins as "the most adventurous of the established musicians of the pe- riod." A few months after the session with Hawkins, Roach went on the road with saxophonist Benny Carter's band.
Returning to New York in the spring of 1945, Roach joined the legendary Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker quintet at the Three Deuces on Fifty-Second Street. Although he credited other drummers for his musical development Roach, as he explained in The Legend of Charlie Parker, attributed Parker as playing a major role in "…the way I play the drums. Bird was really responsible, not just because his style called for a particular kind of drumming, but because he set tempos so fast, it was impossible to play straight." To compensate for the polyrhythmic texture of bebop, Roach abandoned the steady four-four bass pedal and repetitive ride cymbal patterns of earlier jazz drummers. Through the variation of rhythm, he developed what has been called "melodic" drumming—an approach which freed the instrumentalist from his traditional role as strictly a time-keeping accompanist.
With Gillespie's departure from the group, Parker hired 19-year-old trumpeter Miles Davis, who formed a close friendship with Roach. In November of 1945 Roach, along with Gillespie, Davis, and bassist Curly Russell, recorded with Parker on the Savoy label. Released as "Charlie and His Re Boppers," the session yielded the classic numbers "Billie's Bounce," "Now's the Time," and "Thriving on a Riff." The session also included Parker's "Ko Ko"—a landmark bebop number which, as Gary Giddins noted in Chasin' The Bird, "braced by the cold winds of Max Roach's drums…struck with the violence and calm of a hurricane."
By December of 1945, Parker and Gillespie had replaced Roach in a newly assembled group. Roach then free-lanced in Fifty-Second Street clubs with groups led by Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, and J.J. Johnson. He recorded with Hawkins for the Sonora label, cutting the album Coppin' the Bop. His 1947 Dial recordings with Parker included "Scrapple From the Apple," and "Chasin' the Bird." In 1949, Roach attended a session that became part of Miles Davis's ground-breaking Birth of the Cool recordings. That same year, he played on pianist Bud Powell's legendary numbers "Tempus Fugit" and the Latin-influenced number "Uno Poco Loco." Around this time Roach also earned a bachelors degree in music theory from the Manhattan School of Music.
Pioneering Efforts Lauded
In his 1952 work, A History of Jazz in America, Barry Ulanov lauded Roach as "a rhythmic thinker; his solos are not like swing drummers', not dependent on sheer noise and intensity to make the point." Known for his crisp and precise rhythmic execution and melodic sense, Roach was in demand as both a performer and studio musician. That same year, he joined Charles Mingus and his wife Celia as co-founder of the Debut record label. This short-lived company recorded not only solo projects by Roach and Mingus, but also those of jazzmen such as Miles Davis, Thad Jones, Kenny Dorham, and J.J. Johnson. In May of 1953 Roach and Mingus, along with Gillespie, Parker, and Bud Powell, took part in an all-star concert at Toronto's Massey Hall. The concert, recorded on-stage by Mingus, was later released as the Debut recording The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall. In To Be or Not to Bop, Roach recalled the concert, "…everybody was in complete command, everybody had a wonderful time. It was a real happy, happy day."
In 1953, Roach arrived in Hermosa Beach, California to replace drummer Shelly Mann in the Lighthouse All-Stars. During the following year, Roach brought trumpeter Clifford Brown from New York to California and assembled a quintet that included Harold Land, pianist Richie Powell, and bassist George Morrow. In West Coast Jazz, Ted Gioia noted that Roach and Brown "were about to become the most prominent members in one of the finest—if not best—jazz combos of the early 1950s." From sessions recorded in Los Angeles during August of 1954, the quintet recorded its first LP Brown and Roach Incorporated. This release was followed in 1955 by the album Clifford Brown and Max Roach.
These recordings received acclaim from both musicians and music critics. Following the departure of Land from the quintet in 1955, Roach and Brown recruited the talents of saxophonist Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins. The horns of Brown and Rollins, along with Roach's inventively propulsive drumming, proved to be a brilliant combination. Rollins' recording debut with the group occurred on the 1956 album, Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street. Like the group's earlier recordings, At Basin Street showcased Roach's masterful extended solos. The quintet's success, however, was cut short in June of 1956 when Brown and Powell were killed in an automobile accident. "Max used to tell me all the time how he loved playing with Brownie," related Miles Davis in his memoir Miles. "His death really got to Max and he didn't pull out of it for a long time."
After the deaths of Brown and Powell, Roach performed in a trio with Rollins and bassist George Morrow. In April of 1956, he appeared on saxophonist Johnny Griffin's album, Introducing Johnny Griffin. Two months later, he provided accompaniment for Rollins' groundbreaking solo album, Saxophone Colossus. A brilliant showcase of material, this album included "St. Thomas," a Caribbean-inspired number in which, as Ira Gitler observed in the album's liner notes, "Max shines in his featured spot, once again demonstrating his musical approach to the drums." Roach's performance on the album Blue 7 "shows," as Gunther Sculler commented in Jazz Panorama, "that exciting drum solos need not be just an un-thinking burst of energy—they can be interesting and meaningful compositions." In December of 1956 Roach, along with bassist Oscar Pettiford, formed the rhythm section for Thelonious Monk's Riverside album Brilliant Corners. Roach's contributions to Brilliant Corners included playing the tympani on Monk's classic "Bemsha Swing." As Thomas Fetterling remarked in Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, "[Roach] supplanted his kit with tympani, giving the rather simple theme a powerful allure. During [Sonny] Rollins' solo he makes the tympani thunder." In February of 1958, Roach and Pettiford formed a trio with Rollins for the saxophonist's celebrated Riverside album, Freedom Suite.
Advocated for Civil Rights
Roach entered the 1960s committed to the struggle against racism. His outspoken views on race were reflected in the 1960 Atlantic album We Insist! Freedom Now. In July of the same year, he joined Mingus in a protest against the cancellation of the Newport Jazz Festival by staging a "rebel festival" at the nearby Cliff Walk Manor Hotel. The alternative event attracted such talents as Coleman Hawkins, Jo Jones, Ornette Coleman, and vocalist Anne Marie "Abbey" Lincoln. Soon after the event, in a 1961 issue of Down Beat, Roach boldly stated that he would "never again play anything" that did not "have social significance." That same year, Roach infused the voice of racial protest into his recording of Percussion Bitter, Sweet. This album showcased a number of original compositions in the company of such musicians as Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, Julian Priester, Clifford Jordan, and Mal Waldron. Vocalist Abbey Lincoln appeared on the tracks, "Garvey's Ghost," which was dedicated to the Jamaican-born black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, and the ballad "Mendacity," which sardonically mocked American democracy and its promise of racial equality.
Roach married Abbey Lincoln in 1962 and, over the next decade, the two collaborated extensively, even after the marriage eventually ended in divorce. Trained as a rhythm and blues singer, Lincoln expanded her musical horizons by recording with jazz accompanists. In Down Beat, Lincoln described the "handsome, sophisticated," Roach as an inspiring companion who "gave me sanctuary." Devoted to expanding the horizons of African-American music, Roach fused jazz with elements of Negro spirituals to create a voice of artistic expression and social protest. As drummer-bandleader, Roach wrote and arranged choral and orchestral works, the first of which appeared on the album It's Time in 1962. In September of the same year, Roach and Mingus provided the accompaniment for Duke Ellington's Blue Note recording, Money Jungle. The album, which placed Ellington with "two musicians of the next generation, both of whom idolized him, produced some splendidly forthright, if none too well recorded, playing by all three." remarked Brian Priestly in Mingus.
In 1971 Roach began teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he became a key figure in establishing a jazz major. That same year, he recorded Lift Every Voice and Sing, (dedicated to Paul Robeson) with a twenty-two member gospel choir. In 1972, he founded the M'Boom, a ten-man percussion ensemble featuring over one hundred different Third World instruments, including vibes, steel pans, marimbas and chimes. In 1979 and 1980, he joined pianist Cecil Taylor for a series of concerts and spent the rest of the decade recording with jazzmen such as Abdullah Abrahim, Cecil Bridgewater, and Odoen Pope. Peter Keepnews of the New York Times, remembered the Max Roach Double Quartet of the mid-1980s as perhaps Roach's "most ambitious experiment," for in it Roach gave string musicians equal footing with others in the ensemble, allowing them to improvise and swing as never before. In 1987, Roach further pursued his diverse musical vision by contributing to the score of "Swingin' The Dream" an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream." During the following year, he appeared with the Japanese drum troupe Kodo, and became the first jazz musician to win a MacArthur Foundation grant for creative genius.
Throughout the 1990s, Roach was involved in numerous collaborations and creative settings. He recorded the two-CD set, To the Max!, in 1992 and performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Always attentive to new musical ideas, Roach viewed rap as a creative improvisational form and collaborated with MTV's rap-music host Fab Five Freddie in recording the program From Bebop to Hip-hop. Roach's sextet performed with the Abyssinian Baptist choir in 1997. In 1998, Roach performed with his So What Brass Quintet, which was comprised of five brass instruments and drums, and with dancers in choreographer Donald Byrd's production "Jazz Train." He performed live until at least 2001, when he appeared with his Quartet at the 2001 JazzFest in New Orleans. Roach's last recording followed in 2002 with trumpeter Clark Terry. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead found Roach's style on Friendship spare when compared with his dynamic recordings from the 1970s, according to his review of the recording for National Public Radio; yet Whitehead concluded that Roach still "phrases with the clarity and grace of a tap dancer."
Roach's musical career offers a timeline of the creative legacy of modern African-American music. His ability to embrace new musical ideas throughout his career exemplified his vast creative vision and boundless desire to interpret the world around him. While alive, Roach took it as his "mission," commented Ben Sidran in Talking Jazz: An Oral History, "to keep the long revolution marching forward to a new beat." He died on August 16, 2007, in New York City. Roach's "superior quality of sound," as Wynton Marsalis observed in a 1988 New York Times article about jazz, "is one of the marvels of contemporary music." For his percussive talents, Marsalis described Roach as "a peerless master." For setting standards in American music and for using his music to advocate for his culture, Roach remains a man to be admired.
Coleman Hawkins, 1944, Classic Records, (France), 1995.
(With Charlie Parker)
The Very Best of Bird, Warner Brothers.
Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve, Verve, 1989.
The Legendary Dial Masters, Vol. I, Stash, 1989.
Charlie Parker, Swedish Schnapps, (sessions including Roach recorded 1949 and 1951), Verve, 1991.
Charlie Parker, Jazz Masters 15, Verve, 1994.
Yardbird Suite, The Ultimate Charlie Parker Collection, Rhino, 1997.
(With others)
Dexter Gordon, Dexter Rides Again, (1946), Savoy, 1992.
Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool, (1949) Capitol, 1989.
Compact Jazz, Bud Powell, (1949-1950), Verve, 1993.
The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 2, (1951), Blue Note, 1989.
The Quintet, Jazz at Massey Hall, (Debut 1953), Original Jazz Classics, 1989.
Clifford Brown, Brownie, (1954-1956), Emarcy, (ten CD box set).
Charles Mingus, Jump Monk, Debut (Debut 1955), Original Jazz Classics, 1990.
Thad Jones, (Debut 1955), Original Jazz Classics, 1991.
Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus, (1956), Prestige, 1987.
Introducing Johnny Griffin, (1956), Blue Note, 1987.
Thelonious Monk, Brilliant Corners, (1956), Original Jazz Classics, 1987.
Sonny Rollins, Freedom Suite, (Riverside 1958), Original Jazz Classics, 1983.
Abbey Lincoln, Straight Ahead, Candid, 1961.
Duke Ellington, Money Jungle, Blue Note, (1962), 1987.
Max and Dizzy: Paris 1989, A & M, 1989.
Friendship, Columbia, 2003.
(As bandleader)
Brown and Roach Incorporated, Emarcy, 1954.
Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Emarcy, 1955.
Clifford Brown and Max Roach At Basin Street, EmArcy, (1956), 1990.
Max Roach Plus Four, Emarcy, (1956-1957), 1990.
Deeds Not Words, Riverside, 1958.
We Insist! Freedom Now, Candid, 1960.
Percussion, Bitter, Sweet, ABC Paramount Impulse! (1962), 1993.
Max Roach with the New Orchestra of Boston and the So What Brass Quintet, Blue Note, 1996.
Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz (interviewee), 1997.
How to Draw a Bunny (composer), 2002.
Bird, The Legend of Charlie Parker, edited by Robert Reisner, Da Capo, 1962, p. 194.
Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1989, p. 204.
Fetterling, Thomas, Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, foreword by Steve Lacey, Berkley Hill Books, 1997, p. 157.
Giddins, Gary, Chasin' The Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, Beech Tree, 1987, p. 88.
Gillespie, Dizzy, To Be, or Not to Bop, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979, pp. 374-75.
Gioia, Ted, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960, University of California Press, 1992.
Gitler, Ira, Jazz Masters of the Forties, Collier Books, 1966.
Gitler, Ira, The Masters of Bebop, Da Capo, 2001.
Gitler, Ira, Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940's, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Hennesey, Mike, Klook, The Story of Kenny Clarke, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994, pp. 63-64.
Jazz Panorama: From the Birth of Dixieland, From the Pages of Jazz Review, Collier Books, 1958, p. 248.
Korall, Burt, Drummin' Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz, The Swing Years, Schirmer Books, 1990, p. 193.
Mathieson, Kenny, Giant Steps: Bebop and the Creators of Modern Jazz, 1945-65, Canongate, 1999,p. 125.
Owens, Thomas, Bebop: The Music and Its Players, Oxford University Press, 1995.
Priestly, Brian, Mingus: A Critical Biography, Da Capo, 1982.
Sidran, Ben, Talking Jazz: An Oral History, Da Capo, expanded edition, 1995, p. 77.
Taylor, Arthur, Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews, Da Capo Press, 1993.
Ulanov, Barry, A History of Jazz in America, Viking, 1952, p. 288.
The Black Perspective in Music, 1990.
Down Beat, March 21, 1968; July 24, 1969; March 16, 1972; September 1989; November 1978; November 1990; February 1992; May 1993; November 1993; November 1998.
Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2007, p. B8.
Musician, January 1994.
New York Times, July 31, 1988, p. A21; August 25, 2007, p. C10.
Philadelphia Tribune, June 12, 1998, p. E2.
Pulse!, November 1992.
Washington Post, August 17, 2007, p. B6.
"Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz: Max Roach," National Public Radio,www.npr.org/programs/pianojazz/previousguests/summer2007/roach.html (August 27, 2007).
"Max Roach," DrummerWorld,www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Max_Roach.html (August 27, 2007).
"Music Review: Friendship from Clark Terry and Max Roach," National Public Radio,www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1277286 (August 27, 2007).
"Pioneering Jazz Drummer Max Roach Dies at 83," National Public Radio,www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12847242 (August 27, 2007).
Liner notes: Saxophone Colossus, Prestige, 1956, written by Ira Gitler; Giants of Jazz: Coleman Hawkins, Time Life Records, 1979, written by John McDonough.
"Roach, Max." Contemporary Black Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Roach, Max." Contemporary Black Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 19, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/roach-max-0
"Roach, Max." Contemporary Black Biography. . Retrieved July 19, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/roach-max-0
Roach, Max 1924–
Max Roach 1924–
Jam Sessions: The Jazz Classroom
Made Recording Debut
Exemplar of Hard Bop
The Roach, Brown Quintet
Musician And Militant Spokesman
Academic Educator
Since the 1940s jazz drummer Max Roach has expanded the boundaries of his art while stressing the socio-political aspects of the African American experience. Following in the musical footsteps of Big Sid Catlett and Kenny Clarke, Roach, as a member of bands led by such notable talents as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, further developed the art of modern jazz drumming. Although he is considered one of the founders of bebop or modern jazz, Roach refuses to recognize such terms in reference to an African American artform he believes was prejudiciously named by those outside the musical community. Described by music writers as a" melodic drummer," Roach retains, within his solo work, logical constructions built creatively around the composition. As a drummer, educator, composer and political activist, Roach has looked to music as a liberating voice. Roach's use of drums and percussion instruments in orchestral ensemble, the integration of non-standard time signatures, and projects involving rap performers, have kept him at the forefront of change within jazz and African American music.
Maxwell Lemuell Roach was born in Newland, North Carolina, on January 10, 1924. At the age of four, Roach moved with his family to the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn. Roach's mother, a gospel singer, took him to church regularly and it was there that he received his first musical instruction on trumpet and piano. Roach studied keyboard harmony at age eight with his aunt and, within a year, played piano in the summer Bible school of the Concord Baptist Church. Roach's interest in music was heightened by the sounds of his Brooklyn neighborhood." You could walk down the street; you heard people singing, you heard people playing," he recalled in Ira Gitler's book Swing to Bop.'The community was just fraught with music."
Introduced to the drums in high school, Roach joined the school marching band. By listening to radio shows and recordings, he heard the drumming of Jo Jones and swing drummer" Big" Sid Catlett, who recorded with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on such influential bebop numbers as" Salt Peanuts." Along with high school friends such as trumpeter Leonard Hawkins and saxophonist Cecil Payne, Roach listened to the latest jazz bands at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Playing in
Born Maxwell Roach, January 10, 1924, in New land, North Carolina; spouse: Anne Marie "Abbey" Lincoln, married 1962, divorced 1970; children: Maxine.Education: Manhattan School of Music, B.A. in music composition.Religion: Muslim.
Career: Played in jam sessions throughout Harlem, 1942; joined Dizzy Gillespie and recorded first session with Coleman Hawkins, 1944; during the same year worked with saxophonist Benny Cater's Band; worked briefly with the Parker-Gillespie quintet; recorded with Stan Getz, 1946; played in Parker's group from 1946 to 1953; recorded with Miles Davis for Birth of the Cool sessions, 1949; co-founded Debut Record Company, 1952-57; formed a quintet with trumpeter Clifford Brown, 1954-56; worked and recorded with Sonny Rollins, 1956-58; worked with wife and vocalist Abbey Lincoln, 1960s; began teaching at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1971; formed M'Boom percussion section, 1972; recorded with Anthony Braxton and Abdullah Abrahim, 1980s; record producerfor Bluemoon Records and artistic director of the Jazz Institute, 1980s; formed So What Brass Band, 1990s.
Awards: Grand Prix International Du Disque 1977; recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship Award and The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program Grant, 1988.
Addresses: Management —Brad Simon Organization, 122 East 57th St., New York, New York, 10022.
Brooklyn rehearsal bands, he read stock arrangements from the band books of Count Basie and Jimmie Lunce-ford. On weekends at Coney Island, he performed in the Darktown Follies and accompanied eighteen different acts in one day.
Local jam sessions became the main outlet for the development of Roach's rhythmic ideas. At these fiercely competitive exchanges, Roach's drum technique began to deviate from the standard swing patterns of the period. While still a teenager, Roach often wore a penciled mustache in order to appear old enough to attend after-hours jam sessions at Harlem nightclubs like Monroe's Uptown House on 138th Street and Minton's Playhouse located in the dining room of the Hotel Cecil on 118th Street. At Minton's Roach encountered the house band's innovative drummer, Kenny Clarke, a Brooklyn neighbor who provided him with insight concerning technique and career opportunities. Years later, Clarke recounted in Klook: The Story of Kenny Clarke, how he "persuaded" Roach "to study at Julliard so that he could acquire the knowledge to become an all-around musician and do studio work and everything." At this time, Roach also received encouragement from Big Sid Catlett. As Roach told Burt Korall in Drummin' Men, "I didn't hear that much of Big Sid, except on records, apart from the little I heard on 52nd Street, but I was influenced by his kindness, his generosity."
When most of the experienced jazz drummers left New York to serve in the armed forces during World War II, Roach's musical reputation and his ability to read music allowed him to find employment with some of the finest bands of the day. At age sixteen he played three nights at the Paramount Theatre with Duke Ellington's Orchestra, filling in for the ailing Sonny Greer. In Ira Gitler's Jazz Masters of the Forties Roach explained how" I had no rehearsal. The stage came up and I was sitting on Sonny's drums all about me. I followed Duke—his conducting was so hip while he played the piano."
After graduating from Boys High School with full honors in 1942, Roach played regular jobs with white groups, and in the evenings sought out more progressive sounds at Monroe's and Minton's. At these late-night club dates, he established a name for himself as one of the formidable" up-and-coming" modern jazzmen. In 1944, Gillespie and bassist Oscar Pettiford hired Roach for their group based at the Onyx on Fifty-Second Street. From the Onyx, Gillespie booked Roach and several members of a new group across the street at the Down Beat.
In February of 1944 Roach, through the intercession of Dizzy Gillespie, made his recording debut with veteran swing saxophonist Coleman Hawkins on the Keynote label. In the company of Hawkins, Gillespie and other talents such as Budd Johnson and Oscar Pettiford, Roach contributed to the numbers" Disorder at the Border," "Feeling Zero," and" Rainbow Mist." One of the first big-name musicians to hire Roach, Hawkins also nurtured the talents of a number of young modern jazzmen. In the liner notes to Giants of Jazz: Coleman Hawkins, Roach considered Hawkins as" the most adventurous of the established musicians of the period." A few months after the session with Hawkins, Roach went on the road with saxophonist Benny Carter's band.
Returning to New York in the spring of 1945, Roach joined the legendary Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker quintet at the Three Deuces on Fifty-Second Street. Although he credited other drummers for his musical development, Roach, as he explained in The Legend of Charlie Parker, attributed Parker as playing a major role in" …the way I play the drums. Bird was really responsible, not just because his style called for a particular kind of drumming, but because he set tempos so fast, it was impossible to play straight." To compensate for the polyrhythmic texture of bebop, Roach abandoned the steady four-four bass pedal and repetitive ride cymbal patterns of earlier jazz drummers. Through the variation of rhythm, he developed what has been called" melodic" drumming—an approach which freed the instrumentalist from his traditional role as strictly a time-keeping accompanist.
With Gillespie's departure from the group, Parker hired nineteen-year-old trumpeter Miles Davis, who formed a close friendship with Roach. In November of 1945 Roach, along with Gillespie, Davis, and bassist Curly Russell, recorded with Parker on the Savoy label. Released as" Charlie and His Re Boppers," the session yielded the classic numbers" Billie's Bounce," "Now's the Time," and" Thriving on a Riff." The session also included Parker's "Ko Ko"—a landmark bebop number which, as Gary Giddins noted in Chasin' The Bird, "braced by the cold winds of Max Roach's drums … struck with the violence and calm of a hurricane."
By December of 1945, Parker and Gillespie had replaced Roach in a newly assembled group. Roach then free-lanced in Fifty-Second Street clubs with groups led by Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, and J.J. Johnson. He recorded with Hawkins for the Sonora label, cutting the album Coppin' the Bop. His 1947 Dial recordings with Parker included" Scrapple From the Apple," and" Chasin' the Bird." In 1949, Roach attended a session which became part of Miles Davis's ground-breaking Birth of the Cool recordings. That same year, he played on pianist Bud Powell's legendary numbers" Tempus Fugit" and the Latin-influenced number" Uno Poco Loco." Around this time Roach also earned a bachelors degree in music theory from the Manhattan School of Music.
In his 1952 work, A History of Jazz in America, Barry Ulanov lauded Roach as" a rhythmic thinker; his solos are not like swing drummers', not dependent on sheer noise and intensity to make the point." Known for his crisp and precise rhythmic execution and melodic sense, Roach was in demand as both a performer and studio musician. That same year, he joined Charles Mingus and his wife Celia as co-founder of the Debut record label. This short-lived company recorded not only solo projects by Roach and Mingus, but also those of jazzmen such as Miles Davis, Thad Jones, Kenny Dorham, and J.J. Johnson. In May of 1953 Roach and Mingus, along with Gillespie, Parker, and Bud Powell, took part in an all-star concert at Toronto's Massey Hall. The concert, recorded on-stage by Mingus, was later released as the Debut recording The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall. In To Be or Not to Bop, Roach recalled the concert, "…everybody was in complete command, everybody had a wonderful time. It was a real happy, happy day."
In 1953, Roach arrived in Hermosa Beach, California to replace drummer Shelly Mann in the Lighthouse All-Stars. During the following year, Roach brought trumpeter Clifford Brown from New York to California and assembled a quintet which included Harold Land, pianist Richie Powell, and bassist George Morrow. In West Coast Jazz, Ted Gioia noted that Roach and Brown" were about to become the most prominent members in one of the finest—if not best—jazz combos of the early 1950s." From sessions recorded in Los Angeles during August of 1954, the quintet recorded its first LP Brown and Roach Incorporated. This release was followed in 1955 by the album Clifford Brown and Max Roach. These recordings received acclaim from both musicians and music critics. Following the departure of Land from the quintet in 1955, Roach and Brown recruited the talents of saxophonist Theodore Walter" Sonny" Rollins. The horns of Brown and Rollins, along with Roach's inventively propulsive drumming, proved to be a brilliant combination. Rollins' recording debut with the group occurred on the 1956 album,Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street. Like the group's earlier recordings,At Basin Street showcased Roach's masterful extended solos. The quintet's success, however, was cut short in June of 1956 when Brown and Powell were killed in an automobile accident." Max used to tell me all the time how he loved playing with Brownie," related Miles Davis in his memoir Miles." His death really got to Max and he didn't pull out of it for a long time."
After the deaths of Brown and Powell, Roach performed in a trio with Rollins and bassist George Morrow. In April of 1956, he appeared on saxophonist Johnny Griffin's album,Introducing Johnny Griffin. Two months later, he provided accompaniment for Rollins' groundbreaking solo album,Saxophone Colossus. A brilliant showcase of material, this album included" St. Thomas," a Caribbean-inspired number in which, as Ira Gitler observed in the album's liner notes," Max shines in his featured spot, once again demonstrating his musical approach to the drums." Roach's performance on the album Blue 7 "shows," as Gunther Sculler commented in Jazz Panorama, "that exciting drum solos need not be just an un-thinking burst of energy—they can be interesting and meaningful compositions." In December of 1956 Roach, along with bassist Oscar Pettiford, formed the rhythm section for Thelonious Monk's Riverside album Brilliant Corners. Roach's contributions to Brilliant Corners included playing the tympani on Monk's classic" Bemsha Swing." As Thomas Fetterling remarked in Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, "[Roach] supplanted his kit with tympani, giving the rather simple theme a powerful allure. During [Sonny] Rollins' solo he makes the tympani thunder." In February of 1958, Roach and Pettiford formed a trio with Rollins for the saxophonist's celebrated Riverside album,Freedom Suite.
Roach entered the 1960s committed to the struggle against racism. His outspoken views on race were reflected in the 1960 Atlantic album We Insist! Freedom Now. In July of the same year, he joined Mingus in a protest against the cancellation of the Newport Jazz Festival by staging a" rebel festival" at the nearby Cliff Walk Manor Hotel. The alternative event attracted such talents as Coleman Hawkins, Jo Jones, Omette Coleman, and vocalist Anne Marie" Abbey" Lincoln. Soon after the event, in a 1961 issue of Down Beat, Roach boldly stated that he would" never again play anything" that did not" have social significance." That same year, Roach infused the voice of racial protest into his recording of Percussion Bitter, Sweet. This album showcased a number of original compositions in the company of such musicians as Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, Julian Priester, Clifford Jordan, and Mal Waldron. Vocalist Abbie Lincoln appeared on the tracks," Garvey's Ghost," which was dedicated to the Jamaican-born black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, and the ballad" Mendacity," which sardonically mocked American democracy and its promise of racial equality.
Roach married Abbie Lincoln in 1962 and, over the next decade, the two collaborated extensively. Trained as a rhythm and blues singer, Lincoln expanded her musical horizons by recording with jazz accompanists. In Down Beat, Lincoln described the" handsome, sophisticated," Roach as an inspiring companion who" gave me sanctuary." Devoted to expanding the horizons of African American music, Roach fused jazz with elements of Negro spirituals to create a voice of artistic expression and social protest. As drummer-bandleader, Roach wrote and arranged choral and orchestral works, the first of which appeared on the album It's Time in 1962. In September of the same year, Roach and Mingus provided the accompaniment for Duke Ellington's Blue Note recording,Money Jungle. The album, which placed Ellington with" two musicians of the next generation, both of whom idolized him, produced some splendidly forthright, if none too well recorded, playing by all three." remarked Brian Priestly in Mingus.
In 1971 Roach began teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he became a key figure in establishing a jazz major. That same year, he recorded Lift Every Voice and Sing, (dedicated to Paul Robeson) with a twenty-two member gospel choir. In 1972, he founded the M'Boom, a ten-man percussion ensemble featuring over one hundred different Third World instruments, including vibes, steel pans, marimbas and chimes. In 1979 and 1980, he joined pianist Cecil Taylor for a series of concerts and spent the rest of the decade recording with jazzmen such as Abdullah Abrahim, Cecil Bridgewater, and Odoen Pope. In 1987, Roach further pursued his diverse musical vision by contributing to the score of" Swingin' The Dream" an adaptation of William Shakespeare's" Midsummer's Night Dream." During the following year, he appeared with the Japanese drum troupe Kodo, and won a $372,000 MacArthur Foundation grant for creative genius.
Throughout the 1990s, Roach has been involved in numerous collaborations and creative settings. He recorded the two-CD set,To the Max!, in 1992 and performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Always attentive to new musical ideas, Roach viewed rap as a creative improvisational form and collaborated with MTV's rap-music host Fab Freddie Five in recording the program From Bebop to Hip-hop. Roach's sextet performed with the Abyssinian Baptist choir in 1997. In 1998, Roach performed with his So What Brass Quintet, which was comprised of five brass instruments and drums, and with dancers in choreographer Donald Byrd's production" Jazz Train."
Roach's ability to embrace new musical ideas exemplifies his vast creative vision and boundless desire to interpret the world around him. At the close of the twentieth century, Roach's musical career will serve as a time-line with which to trace the creative legacy of modern African American music." Perhaps more than anything, this is his current mission," commented Ben Sidran in Talking Jazz: An Oral History, "to keep the long revolution marching forward to a new beat."
With Charlie Parker
With others
Charles Mingus, Jump Monk, Debut (Debut 1955), OriginalJazz Classics, 1990.
Max and Dizzy. Paris 1989, A & M, 1989.
As bandleader
Interviewed in Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz, 1997.
Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe,Miles: The Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1989, p. 204.
Fetterling, Thomas,Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, foreword by Steve Lacey, Berkley Hill Books, 1997, p. 157.
Giddins, Gary,Chasin' The Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, Beech Tree, 1987, p. 88.
Gillespie, Dizzy,To Be, or Not to Bop, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979, pp. 374-75.
Gioia, Ted,West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960, University of California Press, 1992.
Gitler, Ira,Jazz Masters of the Forties, Collier Books, 1966.
Gitler, Ira,Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940's, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Hennesey, Mike,Klook, The Story of Kenny Clarke, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994, pp. 63-64.
Korall, Burt,Drumminí Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz, The Swing Years, Schirmer Books, 1990, p. 193.
Priestly, Brian,Mingus: A Critical Biography, Da Capo, 1982.
Sidran, Ben,Talking Jazz: An Oral History, Da Capo, expanded edition, 1995, p. 77.
Taylor, Arthur,Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musi-cian Interviews, Da Capo Press, 1993.
Ulanov, Barry,A History of Jazz in America, Viking, 1952, p. 288.
Liner notes:Saxophone Colossus, Prestige, 1956, written by Ira Gitler,Giants of Jazz: Coleman Hawkins, Time Life Records, 1979, written by John McDonough.
—John Cohassey
"Roach, Max 1924–." Contemporary Black Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Roach, Max 1924–." Contemporary Black Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 19, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/roach-max-1924
"Roach, Max 1924–." Contemporary Black Biography. . Retrieved July 19, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/roach-max-1924
Jazz drummer Max Roach (1924-2007) expanded the boundaries of his art. He raised the profile of percussion within American music and served as a pioneer in using his craft as a method for socio-political advocacy for the African-American experience.
Following in the musical footsteps of Big Sid Catlett and Kenny Clarke, Roach—as a member of bands led by such notable talents as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie—further developed the art of modern jazz drumming. Widely recognized as one of the founders of bebop or modern jazz, Roach refused to recognize such terms in reference to an African-American art form he believed was prejudicially named by those outside the musical community. Described by music writers as a "melodic drummer," Roach retained, within his solo work, logical constructions built creatively around the composition. As a drummer, educator, composer, and political activist, Roach looked to music as a liberating voice. Roach's use of drums and percussion instruments in orchestral ensemble, the integration of non-standard time signatures, and projects involving rap performers, kept him at the forefront of change within jazz and African-American music for more than six decades. His virtuosity as a percussionist set new standards and enriched American music.
Maxwell Lemuel Roach was born in Newland, North Carolina, on January 10, 1924. At the age of four, Roach moved with his family to the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn. Roach's mother, a gospel singer, took him to church regularly and it was there that he received his first musical instruction on trumpet and piano. Roach studied keyboard harmony at age eight with his aunt and, within a year, played piano in the summer Bible school of the Concord Baptist Church. Roach's interest in music was heightened by the sounds of his Brooklyn neighborhood. "You could walk down the street; you heard people singing, you heard people playing," he recalled in Ira Gitler's book Swing to Bop. "The community was just fraught with music."
Introduced to the drums in high school, Roach joined the school marching band. By listening to radio shows and recordings, he heard the drumming of Jo Jones and swing drummer "Big" Sid Catlett, who recorded with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on such influential bebop numbers as "Salt Peanuts." Along with high school friends such as trumpeter Leonard Hawkins and saxophonist Cecil Payne, Roach listened to the latest jazz bands at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Playing in Brooklyn rehearsal bands, he read stock arrangements from the band books of Count Basie and Jimmie Lunceford. On weekends at Coney Island, he performed in the Darktown Follies and accompanied eighteen different acts in one day.
Local jam sessions became the main outlet for the development of Roach's rhythmic ideas. At these fiercely competitive exchanges, Roach's drum technique began to deviate from the standard swing patterns of the period. While still a teenager, Roach often wore a penciled mustache in order to appear old enough to attend after-hours jam sessions at Harlem nightclubs like Monroe's Uptown House on 138th Street and Minton's Playhouse located in the dining room of the Hotel Cecil on 118th Street. At Minton's Roach encountered the house band's innovative drummer, Kenny Clarke, a Brooklyn neighbor who provided him with insight concerning technique and career opportunities. Years later, Clarke recounted in Klook: The Story of Kenny Clarke, how he "persuaded," Roach "to study at Julliard so that he could acquire the knowledge to become an all-around musician and do studio work and everything." At this time, Roach also received encouragement from Big Sid Catlett. As Roach told Burt Korall in Drummin' Men, "I didn't hear that much of Big Sid, except on records, apart from the little I heard on 52nd Street, but I was influenced by his kindness, his generosity."
When most of the experienced jazz drummers left New York to serve in the armed forces during World War II, Roach's musical reputation and his ability to read music allowed him to find employment with some of the finest bands of the day. At age sixteen he played three nights at the Paramount Theatre with Duke Ellington's Orchestra, filling in for the ailing Sonny Greer. In Ira Gitler's Jazz Masters of the Forties Roach explained how "I had no rehearsal. The stage came up and I was sitting on Sonny's drums all about me. I followed Duke—his conducting was so hip while he played the piano."
After graduating from Boys High School with full honors in 1942, Roach played regular jobs with white groups, and in the evenings sought out more progressive sounds at Monroe's and Minton's. At these late-night club dates, he established a name for himself as one of the formidable "upand-coming" modern jazzmen. In 1944, Gillespie and bassist Oscar Pettiford hired Roach for their group based at the Onyx on Fifty-Second Street. From the Onyx, Gillespie booked Roach and several members of a new group across the street at the Down Beat.
In February of 1944 Roach, through the intercession of Dizzy Gillespie, made his recording debut with veteran swing saxophonist Coleman Hawkins on the Keynote label. In the company of Hawkins, Gillespie and other talents such as Budd Johnson and Oscar Pettiford, Roach contributed to the numbers "Disorder at the Border," "Feeling Zero," and "Rainbow Mist." One of the first big-name musicians to hire Roach, Hawkins also nurtured the talents of a number of young modern jazzmen. In the liner notes to Giants of Jazz: Coleman Hawkins, Roach considered Hawkins as "the most adventurous of the established musicians of the period." A few months after the session with Hawkins, Roach went on the road with saxophonist Benny Carter's band.
Returning to New York in the spring of 1945, Roach joined the legendary Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker quintet at the Three Deuces on Fifty-Second Street. Although he credited other drummers for his musical development Roach, as he explained in The Legend of Charlie Parker, attributed Parker as playing a major role in "… the way I play the drums. Bird was really responsible, not just because his style called for a particular kind of drumming, but because he set tempos so fast, it was impossible to play straight." To compensate for the polyrhythmic texture of bebop, Roach abandoned the steady four-four bass pedal and repetitive ride cymbal patterns of earlier jazz drummers. Through the variation of rhythm, he developed what has been called "melodic" drumming—an approach which freed the instrumentalist from his traditional role as strictly a time-keeping accompanist.
With Gillespie's departure from the group, Parker hired 19-year-old trumpeter Miles Davis, who formed a close friendship with Roach. In November of 1945 Roach, along with Gillespie, Davis, and bassist Curly Russell, recorded with Parker on the Savoy label. Released as "Charlie and His Re Boppers," the session yielded the classic numbers "Billie's Bounce," "Now's the Time," and "Thriving on a Riff." The session also included Parker's "Ko Ko"—a landmark bebop number which, as Gary Giddins noted in Chasin' The Bird, "braced by the cold winds of Max Roach's drums … struck with the violence and calm of a hurricane."
By December of 1945, Parker and Gillespie had replaced Roach in a newly assembled group. Roach then freelanced in Fifty-Second Street clubs with groups led by Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, and J.J. Johnson. He recorded with Hawkins for the Sonora label, cutting the album Coppin' the Bop. His 1947 Dial recordings with Parker included "Scrapple From the Apple," and "Chasin' the Bird." In 1949, Roach attended a session that became part of Miles Davis's ground-breaking Birth of the Cool recordings. That same year, he played on pianist Bud Powell's legendary numbers "Tempus Fugit" and the Latininfluenced number "Uno Poco Loco." Around this time Roach also earned a bachelors degree in music theory from the Manhattan School of Music.
In his 1952 work, A History of Jazz in America, Barry Ulanov lauded Roach as "a rhythmic thinker; his solos are not like swing drummers', not dependent on sheer noise and intensity to make the point." Known for his crisp and precise rhythmic execution and melodic sense, Roach was in demand as both a performer and studio musician. That same year, he joined Charles Mingus and his wife Celia as co-founder of the Debut record label. This short-lived company recorded not only solo projects by Roach and Mingus, but also those of jazzmen such as Miles Davis, Thad Jones, Kenny Dorham, and J.J. Johnson. In May of 1953 Roach and Mingus, along with Gillespie, Parker, and Bud Powell, took part in an all-star concert at Toronto's Massey Hall. The concert, recorded on-stage by Mingus, was later released as the Debut recording The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall. In To Be or Not to Bop, Roach recalled the concert, "… everybody was in complete command, everybody had a wonderful time. It was a real happy, happy day."
In 1953, Roach arrived in Hermosa Beach, California to replace drummer Shelly Mann in the Lighthouse All-Stars. During the following year, Roach brought trumpeter Clifford Brown from New York to California and assembled a quintet that included Harold Land, pianist Richie Powell, and bassist George Morrow. In West Coast Jazz, Ted Gioia noted that Roach and Brown "were about to become the most prominent members in one of the finest—if not best—jazz combos of the early 1950s." From sessions recorded in Los Angeles during August of 1954, the quintet recorded its first LP Brown and Roach Incorporated. This release was followed in 1955 by the album Clifford Brown and Max Roach.
These recordings received acclaim from both musicians and music critics. Following the departure of Land from the quintet in 1955, Roach and Brown recruited the talents of saxophonist Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins. The horns of Brown and Rollins, along with Roach's inventively propulsive drumming, proved to be a brilliant combination. Rollins' recording debut with the group occurred on the 1956 album, Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street. Like the group's earlier recordings, At Basin Street showcased Roach's masterful extended solos. The quintet's success, however, was cut short in June of 1956 when Brown and Powell were killed in an automobile accident. "Max used to tell me all the time how he loved playing with Brownie," related Miles Davis in his memoir Miles. "His death really got to Max and he didn't pull out of it for a long time."
After the deaths of Brown and Powell, Roach performed in a trio with Rollins and bassist George Morrow. In April of 1956, he appeared on saxophonist Johnny Griffin's album, Introducing Johnny Griffin. Two months later, he provided accompaniment for Rollins' groundbreaking solo album, Saxophone Colossus. A brilliant showcase of material, this album included "St. Thomas," a Caribbeaninspired number in which, as Ira Gitler observed in the album's liner notes, "Max shines in his featured spot, once again demonstrating his musical approach to the drums." Roach's performance on the album Blue 7 "shows," as Gunther Sculler commented in Jazz Panorama, "that exciting drum solos need not be just an un-thinking burst of energy—they can be interesting and meaningful compositions." In December of 1956 Roach, along with bassist Oscar Pettiford, formed the rhythm section for Thelonious Monk's Riverside album Brilliant Corners. Roach's contributions to Brilliant Corners included playing the tympani on Monk's classic "Bemsha Swing." As Thomas Fetterling remarked in Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, "[Roach] supplanted his kit with tympani, giving the rather simple theme a powerful allure. During [Sonny] Rollins' solo he makes the tympani thunder." In February of 1958, Roach and Pettiford formed a trio with Rollins for the saxophonist's celebrated Riverside album, Freedom Suite.
Roach entered the 1960s committed to the struggle against racism. His outspoken views on race were reflected in the 1960 Atlantic album We Insist! Freedom Now. In July of the same year, he joined Mingus in a protest against the cancellation of the Newport Jazz Festival by staging a "rebel festival" at the nearby Cliff Walk Manor Hotel. The alternative event attracted such talents as Coleman Hawkins, Jo Jones, Ornette Coleman, and vocalist Anne Marie "Abbey" Lincoln. Soon after the event, in a 1961 issue of Down Beat, Roach boldly stated that he would "never again play anything" that did not "have social significance." That same year, Roach infused the voice of racial protest into his recording of Percussion Bitter, Sweet. This album showcased a number of original compositions in the company of such musicians as Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, Julian Priester, Clifford Jordan, and Mal Waldron. Vocalist Abbey Lincoln appeared on the tracks, "Garvey's Ghost," which was dedicated to the Jamaican-born black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, and the ballad "Mendacity," which sardonically mocked American democracy and its promise of racial equality.
Roach married Abbey Lincoln in 1962 and, over the next decade, the two collaborated extensively, even after the marriage eventually ended in divorce. Trained as a rhythm and blues singer, Lincoln expanded her musical horizons by recording with jazz accompanists. In Down Beat, Lincoln described the "handsome, sophisticated," Roach as an inspiring companion who "gave me sanctuary." Devoted to expanding the horizons of African-American music, Roach fused jazz with elements of Negro spirituals to create a voice of artistic expression and social protest. As drummer-bandleader, Roach wrote and arranged choral and orchestral works, the first of which appeared on the album It's Time in 1962. In September of the same year, Roach and Mingus provided the accompaniment for Duke Ellington's Blue Note recording, Money Jungle. The album, which placed Ellington with "two musicians of the next generation, both of whom idolized him, produced some splendidly forthright, if none too well recorded, playing by all three." remarked Brian Priestly in Mingus.
In 1971 Roach began teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he became a key figure in establishing a jazz major. That same year, he recorded Lift Every Voice and Sing, (dedicated to Paul Robeson) with a twenty-two member gospel choir. In 1972, he founded the M'Boom, a ten-man percussion ensemble featuring over one hundred different Third World instruments, including vibes, steel pans, marimbas and chimes. In 1979 and 1980, he joined pianist Cecil Taylor for a series of concerts and spent the rest of the decade recording with jazzmen such as Abdullah Abrahim, Cecil Bridgewater, and Odoen Pope. Peter Keepnews of the New York Times, remembered the Max Roach Double Quartet of the mid-1980s as perhaps Roach's "most ambitious experiment," for in it Roach gave string musicians equal footing with others in the ensemble, allowing them to improvise and swing as never before. In 1987, Roach further pursued his diverse musical vision by contributing to the score of "Swingin' The Dream" an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream." During the following year, he appeared with the Japanese drum troupe Kodo, and became the first jazz musician to win a MacArthur Foundation grant for creative genius.
Throughout the 1990s, Roach was involved in numerous collaborations and creative settings. He recorded the two-CD set, To the Max!, in 1992 and performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Always attentive to new musical ideas, Roach viewed rap as a creative improvisational form and collaborated with MTV's rap-music host Fab Five Freddie in recording the program From Bebop to Hip-hop. Roach's sextet performed with the Abyssinian Baptist choir in 1997. In 1998, Roach performed with his So What Brass Quintet, which was comprised of five brass instruments and drums, and with dancers in choreographer Donald Byrd's production "Jazz Train." He performed live until at least 2001, when he appeared with his Quartet at the 2001 JazzFest in New Orleans. Roach's last recording followed in 2002 with trumpeter Clark Terry. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead found Roach's style on Friendship spare when compared with his dynamic recordings from the 1970s, according to his review of the recording for National Public Radio; yet Whitehead concluded that Roach still "phrases with the clarity and grace of a tap dancer."
Roach's musical career offers a timeline of the creative legacy of modern African-American music. His ability to embrace new musical ideas throughout his career exemplified his vast creative vision and boundless desire to interpret the world around him. While alive, Roach took it as his "mission," commented Ben Sidran in Talking Jazz: An Oral History, "to keep the long revolution marching forward to a new beat." He died on August 16, 2007, in New York City. Roach's "superior quality of sound," as Wynton Marsalis observed in a 1988 New York Times article about jazz, "is one of the marvels of contemporary music." For his percussive talents, Marsalis described Roach as "a peerless master." For setting standards in American music and for using his music to advocate for his culture, Roach remains a man to be admired.
Bird, The Legend of Charlie Parker, edited by Robert Reisner, Da Capo, 1962.
Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Fetterling, Thomas, Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, foreword by Steve Lacey, Berkley Hill Books, 1997.
Giddins, Gary, Chasin' The Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, Beech Tree, 1987.
Gillespie, Dizzy, To Be, or Not to Bop, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979.
Hennesey, Mike, Klook, The Story of Kenny Clarke, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994.
Jazz Panorama: From the Birth of Dixieland, From the Pages of Jazz Review, Collier Books, 1958.
Korall, Burt, Drummin' Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz, The Swing Years, Schirmer Books, 1990.
Mathieson, Kenny, Giant Steps: Bebop and the Creators of Modern Jazz, 1945-65, Canongate, 1999.
Sidran, Ben, Talking Jazz: An Oral History, Da Capo, expanded edition, 1995.
Ulanov, Barry, A History of Jazz in America, Viking, 1952.
Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2007.
New York Times, July 31, 1988; August 25, 2007.
Philadelphia Tribune, June 12, 1998.
Washington Post, August 17, 2007.
"Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz: Max Roach," National Public Radio, www.npr.org/programs/pianojazz/previousguests/summer2007/roach.html (August 27, 2007).
"Max Roach," DrummerWorld, www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Max_Roach.html (August 27, 2007).
"Music Review: Friendship from Clark Terry and Max Roach," National Public Radio, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1277286 (August 27, 2007).
"Pioneering Jazz Drummer Max Roach Dies at 83," National Public Radio, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12847242 (August 27, 2007).
"Roach, Max." Encyclopedia of World Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Roach, Max." Encyclopedia of World Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 19, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roach-max-0
"Roach, Max." Encyclopedia of World Biography. . Retrieved July 19, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roach-max-0
Contemporary Musicians
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
Drummer, composer
First Recording
Stint With Charlie Parker
Music and Militancy
An individual of multidimensional vision, drummer i Max Roach has constantly expanded his creative horizons while stressing the sociopolitical and historical roots of his art. Over the last five decades, Roach has been idolized by drummers as one of the premier originators of modern jazz. Rising to prominence in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker during the mid-1940s, Roach emerged as a powerful force in defining the conception and rhythmic foundations of what became known as bebop, or modern jazz—titles Roach refuses to recognize in reference to an African-American artform he believes was prejudiciously named by those outside the musical community. In the university classroom and on the concert stage, Roach has devoted his life to musical exploration and the struggle against cultural discrimination among all people of African descent.
Born in Newland, North Carolina, on January 10,1924, Maxwell Roach moved with his family to the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn at age four. Roach's mother, a gospel singer, took him to church where he received his first musical instruction on trumpet and piano. When he was eight, Roach studied keyboard harmony with his aunt and within a year played piano in the summer Bible school of the Concord Baptist Church. Outside of church, Roach's interest in music was heightened by the sounds of his Brooklyn neighborhood. "You could walk down the street; you heard people singing, you heard people playing," he recalled in Swing to Bop."The community was just fraught with music."
Introduced to the drums in high school, Roach joined the school marching band. From radio shows and recordings he heard the drumming of Jo Jones and "Big" Sid Catlett who, as Roach told Don Gold in Down Beat, became his "main source of inspiration." Along with high school friends trumpeter Leonard Hawkins and saxophonist Cecil Payne, Roach watched the latest jazz bands at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. While playing in Brooklyn rehearsal bands, he read stock arrangements from the band books of Count Basie and Jimmie Lunceford. During weekends spent at Coney Island he performed in the Darktown Follies, sometimes accompanying up to 18 different acts in one day.
Local jam sessions became the main outlet for the development of Roach's rhythmic ideas. Atthese fiercely competitive exchanges, his drum technique began to deviate from the standard swing patterns of the period. While still a minor, Roach often wore a penciled mustache to attend after-hours jam sessions at Harlem
Born Maxwell Roach, January 10,1924, in Newland, NC; married Anne Marie "Abbey" Lincoln (a singer), 1962 (divorced). Education: B.A. in music composition, Manhattan School of Music, c. 1955.
Played in jam sessions throughout Harlem, 1942; joined Dizzy Gillespie and recorded first session with Coleman Hawkins, 1944; played with the Paker-Gillespie quintet, 1946-53; formed quintet with trumpeter Clifford Brown, then with trumpeter Booker Little, 1954-61; worked with wife, vocalist Abbey Lincoln, c. 1960s; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, teacher, beginning 1971; formed M'Boom percussion section, 1972; Bluemoon Records, record producer, beginning in 1980s; artistic director, Jazz Institute.
Awards: Composer/Reader's Digest Commisioning Program grant, 1988; MacArthur fellowship recipient.
Addresses: Management —Brad Simon Organization, 122 East 57th St., New York, NY 10022.
nightclubs like Monroe's Uptown House on 138th Street and Minton's Playhouse located next to the Hotel Cecil on 118th Street.
When most of the experienced jazz drummers left New York to serve in the armed services during World War II, Roach's musical reputation and his ability to read music allowed him to find employment in some of the finest bands of the period. At age 16 he played three nights at the Paramount Theater with Duke Ellington's Orchestra, filling for the ailing Sonny Greer. "I had no rehearsal," he explained in Jazz Masters of the Forties."The stage came up and I was sitting on Sonny's drums all about me. I followed Duke—his conducting was so hip while he played the piano."
After graduating from high school with full honors in 1942, Roach set out to study bebop at jam sessions around the city. In the evenings, following his regular jobs at white clubs, Roach traveled uptown to play at Monroe's and Minton's. At these late-night dates he established a name as one of the most formidable of the "up-and-coming" modern jazzmen.
In 1944, Gillespie and bassist Oscar Pettiford hired him to play with their group at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Upon first hearing Roach at the Onyx Club, drummer Stan Levey recalled to Down Beat, "I was petrified. Max was a radically new experience for me. He was completely different in his technique and musical approach."
During the same year, Roach made his recording debut with veteran swing saxophonist Coleman Hawkins on the Apollo label. One of the first big-name musicians to hire Roach, Hawkins nurtured the talents of a number of young modem jazzmen. In Song of the Hawk, Roach stated that "when the movement was in its infancy Coleman was the guy who encouraged many of us. He always made me feel like something." A few months following the session with Hawkins, Roach went on the road with saxophonist Benny Carter's band.
Returning to New York in the spring of 1945, Roach joined the legendary Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker quintet at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street. After Dizzy left the group, 19-year-old Miles Davis took over the trumpet chair. Davis related in his autobiography Miles that "everybody was talking about Max becoming the next Kenny Clarke, who was considered bebop's top drummer. Max and I were roommates and went everywhere together. All I wanted to do was play with Bird [Parker] and Max and make some good music." Early in 1945 Roach and Davis, along with Gillespie on piano and trumpet, backed Parker on the recording Charlie and His Reeboppers, producing the classic numbers "Billie's Bounce," "Now's the Time," "Thriving on a Riff," and "Ko Ko."
Working with Parker's quintet between 1946 and 1953 allowed Roach artistic freedom to create new rhythmic patterns to accompany the complex arrangements and often breakneck tempos of modernist jazz. "Everything was on the edge with Bird," he told Suzanne McElfresh in Down Beat, "you never knew what he was going to do musically, but it always worked out." To compensate for the polyrhythmic texture of bebop, Roach abandoned the steady four-four bass pedal and repetitive ride cymbal patterns of earlier jazz drummers. Through the variation of rhythm he developed what has been called "melodic" drumming—an approach which freed the instrumentalist from his traditional role as time-keeping accompanist.
Aside from taking part in Davis's groundbreaking recording Birth of the Cool in 1949, Roach played on pianist Bud Powell's legendary Latin-influenced "Uno Poco Loco," which appeared on the Blue Note label in 1951. Around this time Roach also earned a bachelor's degree in music theory from the Manhattan School of Music.
In 1954, Roach and trumpeter Clifford Brown formed a quintet featuring saxophonist Harold Land and pianist Richie Powell. Their recordings for Mercury's Emarcy label received acclaim from musicians and critics. Upon the departure of Land in 1955, Roach and Brown recruited the talents of saxophonist Walter "Sonny" Rollins. The horns of Brown and Rollins, along with Roach's inventively propulsive drumming, proved a brilliant combination. The group's success, however, was short-lived—Brown and Powell died in a auto accident in 1956.
During this same period, Roach met rhythm and blues singer Ann Marie "Abbey" Lincoln. Through Roach's encouragement, Lincoln began to record with jazz accompanists. "When he came to see me he was just wonderful to be around, handsome, sophisticated," related Lincoln in Down Beat, "he gave me sanctuary." Married in 1962, Roach and Lincoln formed a musical association which would last over ten years.
Roach entered the decade of the 1960s committed to the struggle against racial subjugation. Together Lincoln and Roach became outspoken critics of white society. In 1961, Roach explained in Down Beat that he would "never again play anything" that did not "have social significance." Devoted to expanding the horizons of African-American music, Roach fused jazz with elements of Negro spirituals to create a voice of artistic expression and social protest.
As drummer-bandleader, Roach wrote and arranged choral and orchestral works, the first of which appeared on the album It's Time in 1962. His work Percussion BitterSweet remains a testament of the times, blending political passions with the vocals of Lincoln and the first-rate musicianship of Clifford Jordan, Julian Priester, and Booker Little.
In 1971, Roach began teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he helped establish a jazz major. A year later, he founded the M'Boom, an all-percussion ten-man ensemble featuring over a hundred different Third World instruments, including vibes, steel pans, marimbas, and chimes. For over 20 years M'Boom has been active playing concerts and making appearances on recordings such as 1992's To the Max! In keeping with current musical trends, Roach collaborated with MTV's rap-music host Fab Five Freddie in recording the program From Bebop to Hip-hop. Always attentive to new musical ideas, Roach views rap as a creative form based upon the African art of the spoken word. "I hear the Charlie Parkers in these young people," explained Roach in the Metro Times."They've figured out a way to improvise on a subject the way we improvised on thematic material."
That Roach continues to embrace new musical ideas exemplifies his vast creative vision and his incessant need to interpret the world around him. At the close of the twentieth century, Roach's musical career will serve as a time line with which to trace the creative legacy of modern African-American music. Drummer, educator, and composer, as well as political activist, Roach has brought new direction and meaning to the art of jazz drumming.
(With Clifford Brown) At Basin Street, Mercury, 1956.
It's Time, Impulse, 1962.
(With Parker) Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker On Verve, Verve, 1989.
(With Dizzy Gillespie) Max & Dizzy: Paris 1989, A&M,
To the Max!, Bluemoon, 1992.
(With Miles Davis) Birth of the Cool, Capitol.
Bright Moments, Soul Note.
Drums Unlimited, Atlantic.
Percussion BitterSweet, Impulse.
Percussion Ensemble, Mercury.
Quartet, Fantasy.
(With Charlie Parker) The Very Best of Bird, Warner Bros.
We Insist! Freedom Now, Candid.
Gillespie, Dizzy, To Be, or Not to Bop, Doubleday, 1979.
Gitler, Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of Jazz in the 1940s, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Black Perspective in Music, 1990.
Detroit Free Press, December 6, 1991.
Down Beat, March 21, 1968; July 24,1969; March 16,1972; November 1978; September 1989; November 1990; February 1992; May 1993; November 1993.
Metro Times (Detroit), December 4, 1991.
Pulse!, September 1992; November 1992.
"Roach, Max." Contemporary Musicians. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Roach, Max." Contemporary Musicians. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 19, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/roach-max
"Roach, Max." Contemporary Musicians. . Retrieved July 19, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/roach-max
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History
The jazz drummer and bandleader Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He studied music as a child with his mother, a gospel singer, and received piano lessons from his aunt. He also received music lessons in public school, and by the age of ten he was playing drums in church bands. He performed in Coney Island sideshows, such as the Darktown Follies, while in high school. During this time he also began frequenting Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where he met some of the leading jazz musicians of the day. In 1941 Roach graduated with honors from Brooklyn's Boys' High School. Soon after, he started performing regularly with the saxophonist Charlie Parker at Clark Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem, and by the next year he had a strong enough reputation to fill in for Sonny Greer for several nights with Duke Ellington's orchestra.
In 1943 and 1944 Roach recorded and performed with the saxophonist Coleman Hawkins at Kelly's Stable as a replacement for Kenny Clarke ("Woody'n' You," 1944; "Bu-Dee-Daht," 1944). In 1944 he also joined the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's quintet at the Onyx Club, becoming a member of the first bebop band to open on 52nd Street, which had become the central location for New York jazz nightclubs. The next year Roach began working with Charlie Parker, an association that would last more than five years. On Roach's first important recording with Parker, the uptempo "Ko-Ko" (1945), Roach had already left swing drumming behind for a bebop style, keeping time on the cymbal and reserving the drums themselves for accents.
Together with Kenny Clarke, Roach redefined the rhythmical and structural architecture of jazz drumming, while also creating a new solo role for modern jazz drum performance. Initially influenced by the imaginative "melodic" solo style of Sid Catlett, the driving intensity of Chick Webb, and the fluid swing and finesse of Jo Jones, Roach distilled their stylistic characteristics through Clarke's polyrhythmic innovations. By the end of the 1940s, Roach was recognized as one of the leading drummers in jazz. He performed on Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" recordings (1949) and on Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco" (1951). In the early 1950s he continued his prolific career while pursuing studies in composition and tympani at the Manhattan School of Music. From 1954 to 1956 he co-led the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet, which pioneered the hard-driving style known as hard hop (Study in Brown, 1955; At Basin Street, 1956).
In the 1960s Roach began to combine his music with his politics, with a particular emphasis on racial oppression in both the United States and South Africa. His 1960 recording of We Insist: Freedom Now Suite used free-form musical structures, including an emotionally charged interplay between the drummer and his then-wife, the vocalist Abbey Lincoln, to explore the theme of racial oppression in America. That work also used West African drumming and Afro-Cuban percussion to draw parallels between slavery in the United States, segregation, and apartheid in South Africa.
In the 1960s Roach began to move away from appearing solely in strict jazz contexts. He began performing solo drum compositions as independent pieces, an effort dating back to his "Drum Conversation" of 1953. He also recorded original works for vocal choruses and pianoless quartets. In the 1960s Roach taught at the Lenox School of Jazz, and in 1972 he assumed a faculty position at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Among Roach's most significant work from the 1970s are duet recordings he made with some of the leading figures from the postbebop avant-garde, including Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Cecil Taylor. In the 1980s, Roach's astoundingly protean career included performances and recordings with a jazz quartet, the percussion ensemble M'Boom, the Uptown String Quartet (with his daughter Maxine on viola), rap and hip-hop musicians and dancers. In 1980 Roach recorded an interactive drum solo with a tape recording of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have A Dream" speech (Chattahoochee Red ), and in 1989 he recorded duets with Dizzy Gillespie. Roach, who wrote music as early as 1946 ("Coppin' The Bop"), has in recent years dedicated more and more of his time to composition. His Shepardsets, a work for the theater, received an Obie Award in 1985, and he has also composed for film and television, and for symphony orchestra.
Throughout the 1990s, Roach was involved with a number of collaborations and creative efforts. He recorded the two-CD set, To the Max!, in 1992 and performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Attentive to new musical ideas, Roach viewed rap as a creative improvisational form and collaborated with MTV's rapmusic host Fab Freddie Five in recording the program From Bebop to Hip-hop. In 1998, Roach performed with his So What Brass Quintet, which was comprised of five brass instruments and drums, and with dancers in choreographer Donald Byrd's production "Jazz Train."
Roach, who has lived in New York all of his life, is recognized not only as one of the most important drummers in the history of jazz, but as one of the leading African-American cultural figures of the twentieth century, with a decades-long commitment to fighting racial injustice. In addition to the several honorary doctorates he has received throughout his career, in 1988 Roach became the first jazz musician to receive a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
See also Gillespie, Dizzy; Jazz; Lincoln, Abbey; Parker, Charlie
Brown, Anthony. "The Development of Modern Jazz Drumset Artistry." Black Perspective in Music 18, nos. 1, 2 (1990): 39–58.
Roach, Max. "What Jazz Means to Me." Black Scholar 3, no. 2 (1972): 3.
Weinstein, Norman C. A Night in Tunisia: Imaginings of Africa in Jazz. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992, pp. 118–126.
Whitehead, Kevin. "Max Roach: Drum Architect." Down Beat 52, no. 10 (1985): 16.
anthony brown(1996)
Updated by publisher 2005
"Roach, Max." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Roach, Max." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 19, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roach-max
"Roach, Max." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. . Retrieved July 19, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roach-max
Max Roach (Maxwell Lemuel Roach), 1924–2007, African-American jazz drummer, b. Newland, N.C. Raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was playing jazz in Harlem clubs by 1943. Roach had an important role in the genesis of bop (see jazz), providing jagged, layered rhythms to groups led by Dizzy Gillespie (1944) and Charlie Parker (1945–53), and elevating drums to the status of solo instruments. An innovative virtuoso who mingled power with subtlety, Roach became (1954) co-leader with trumpeter Clifford Brown of a hard-bop jazz quintet that also included Sonny Rollins. After Brown's death (1956), Roach led a variety of jazz small groups, and in the early 1960s he was an early public jazz champion of racial equality, particularly in his We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (1960). He founded M'Boom, an all-percussion group, in the 1970s and the Max Roach Double Quartet, in which strings played an important part, in the 80s, and later led the So What Brass Quintet. Roach also composed music for the theater and for dances by Alvin Ailey.
"Roach, Max." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Roach, Max." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 19, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roach-max
"Roach, Max." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. . Retrieved July 19, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/roach-max


Documented Legacy, LLC assists people and organizations in recording aspects of their life-long history by documenting their experiences, values, beliefs, and charitable decisions through the use of story telling and ethical wills. (Read more about Legacy Writing).
The company is led by Mary V. Danielsen, a professional writer with more than 25 years in the communications industry. She has a background in public relations and communications, speech writing, genealogy research, legacy writing, and journalism. Her team includes writers, designers, printers and publishers.
Documented Legacy offers offer private and group consultation in the development, writing and recording of personal histories, ethical wills, and supplemental writing to accompany legal and living wills, estate planning, and charitable giving.
In a group consultation, for example, the company provides training and guidance in the development and writing of ethical and legacy wills, discussing why an ethical will is written, how and when to prepare for an ethical will, how to focus on the points that you want to make and how to align these decisions with your legal will and living will, when to share these with family, and how to preserve your ethical will.
In private consultations, usually done in conjunction with legal, financial or healthcare consultants or family members, the company works directly with clients to interview, and record an ethical will or document legacy letters to give passion and clarity to the decisions made in estate or life care planning. These consultations may also include conducting household inventory or family heirloom documentation.
In corporate communications, the company works directly with organization officials to develop a plan for recording the business history, transitions, anniversaries, and celebrations, and provides any needed public relations counseling. These services may include speechwriting, executive communications, tributes, biographies, and photography work.


text:
Better to break bad laws than break workers' backs!
Posted on June 5, 2015 by Scottish Socialist Voice // 0 Comments
The STUC has called the 'Scotland United Against Austerity' mass demo in Glasgow on Saturday 20 June—an idea the SSP pushed for from the day after the election outcome. (Photo: Craig Maclean)
by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser The Queen's Speech, written by a Tory government elected by only 24.4 per cent of all eligible voters and in the case of Scotland, a government supported by a minuscule 10.5 per cent of registered vote, is saturated in hellish plans to butcher benefits, wipe out workers' rights and slaughter services—class warfare on the millions by a government of the millionaires with no mandate.
That perfectly captures the undemocratic nature of capitalist rule through Westminster which must be defied by a united mass movement of resistance, or generations to come will suffer the consequences.
With callous disregard for the facts, David Cameron declared: "We have a mandate from the British people, a clear manifesto and the instruction to deliver. We will not waste a single moment in getting on with the task."
They plan to forge ahead with a blitzkrieg on workers' rights and the incomes of millions already struggling to survive. Shameless, racist measures designed to whip up division amongst the victims of Tory rule include new immigration laws that amount to 'deport now, appeal later'—which in many cases would mean appealing against deportation after death in the war-torn countries people have fled from.
The core of the Tories' class warfare is directed at the working class majority population. A blitz on benefits and wipeout of workers' rights. Of their total £30billion cuts, an additional £12billion benefit cuts are planned. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies these plans it will especially be the working poor, particularly those with children, who will suffer the most severely.
They point out that the much-trumpeted benefits cap, being cut from £26,000 to £23,000 for a household, will hammer families with several children and high rents, cutting about 24,000 families' incomes by £3,000 a year.
But as fewer than 100,000 families across the UK will be impacted, this will only meet about £0.1billion of the Tories' total £12billion target. Abolition of housing benefits to jobseekers aged 18-21 may therefore be extended to all those under 25; an outrageous attack on those starting out in life.
As Tax Credits (£30billion a year) and Housing Benefits (£26billion a year) make up more than half of all 'unprotected' public spending, and Disability and Incapacity Benefits a further third of the total, the IFS rightly forecasts that the bulk of the cuts will target these people.
As they put it, "About 80 per cent of entitlements to benefits got to working age families, and a large majority of these benefits are means-tested, so it will be very difficult to avoid hitting low-income families—especially those with children—hardest." And they add that 75 per cent of benefits go to families in the bottom half of incomes. This starkly underlines the tsunami of cuts about to hit the working class and poorest, unless we build mass resistance.
Slashing the numbers entitled to Carers' Allowances by 40 per cent; cutting £3.8billion off Tax Credits, by hounding part-time workers with impossible new targets on additional hours of work; slaughtering an estimated 1.3 million public sector jobs by 2019: these are some of the appalling measures leaked out before Her Majesty even got round to announcing the Tory Butchers' plans for the people who never gave them a mandate.
Pivotal to this class warfare are plans to virtually abolish trade union rights. The government that won a grand total of 36 per cent of all votes cast, and a mere 24.4 per cent of eligible voters, is imposing rules that demand a 50 per cent turnout and at least 40 per cent of all eligible voters before a union can take any form of legal industrial action in defence of jobs, services or workers' rights.
So in a workforce of 200, at least 100 would have to vote, and at least 80 of them vote for the action—an almost impossible set of hurdles designed to stop effective resistance by the organisations that are the first and last line of defence for workers—their unions.
Their manifesto homed in on introducing the 40 per cent threshold first in "those essential services—health, education, fire and transport"; services they regard as far from essential as they slash their funding! But of course they will spread their legal poison to every sector if they get away with it in the 'essential services'.
On top of that, the Tory election manifesto made it brutally plain what to expect if workers dare defy their pursuit of profit maximisation. To quote the Tory statement of intent: "We will repeal nonsensical restrictions banning employers from hiring agency staff to provide essential cover during strikes."
So they plan to scrap the current ban on use of Agency workers to scab on strikes, so they can conscript desperate and insecure people into further undermining fellow workers' wages, jobs and conditions.
A massive campaign of resistance needs to be mounted, in the parliament, in the workplaces, on the streets, in our communities.
It is therefore extremely good news that the Scottish TUC has called the 'Scotland United Against Austerity' mass demo in Glasgow on Saturday 20 June—an idea the SSP pushed for from the day after the election outcome. We all need to build that into a mammoth show of unity against all forms of cuts and attacks on workers' rights.
And it needs to become the platform to launch an ongoing resistance. This to include a concerted demand for powers over the minimum wage to be devolved to Scotland so we can fight for a Scottish £10-an-hour minimum wage for all over 16, with equal pay for women.
A campaign to win devolution of powers over employment laws, so as to repeal the lot and usher in a Charter of Workers' Rights instead. A campaign to win power for Holyrood over business taxes—but not so as to reduce taxation of big business, as the SNP wish, but to restore Corporation Tax to its 50 per cent pre-Thatcher level, as demanded by the SSP.
Whilst fighting for such powers to protect the Scottish working class from Tory dictatorship, the STUC and union leaderships also need to square up to the fact that submission to the anti-union laws means accepting literal destitution and starvation for big sections of working class people.
The unions literally wouldn't exist if our predecessors had meekly accepted the 'laws of the land', written and imposed by an upper-class minority hell-bent on squeezing the last drop of profit and privilege for themselves out of the sweated labour of the real wealth-creators.
Nobody would lightly hand over union assets—accumulated from workers' union subs—but unless union leaders are prepared to defy these anti-union laws, workers will have no chance. It's better to break bad anti-union laws than allow the Tories and profiteering employers to break the backs of workers.
Join the SSP in defiance of Tory dictatorship. Help build the STUC demo on 20 June. Resolve to resist the slaughter of jobs, services, benefits and workers' rights by a government with no popular mandate to rule and ruin. United in determined action we can defeat the Tories class war.
#defytoryrule
agency workers
anti union laws
benefits cuts
Human Rights Act
Queen's Speech
richie venton
Scotland United Against Austerity
stuc
Tory manifesto

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Sennheiser MOMENTUM Wireless adds Bluetooth connectivity to a great pair of headphones and gets even better in the process.
These are some of the best wireless noise canceling headphones we've seen, period.
Sennheiser's MOMENTUM headphones are held in high regard among both audiophiles and normal folk alike, so the only thing surprising about a wireless version is how long it's taken for them to appear. Initially announced at this year's CES, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM Wireless had us excited as soon as we were made aware of their existence.
Active noise cancellation is a commonplace term these days, but it's far from easy to do. Throw in Bluetooth connectivity and it's generally going to be fairly pricey. Indeed, these headphones retail for $499 – that's $100 more than the Momentum 2.0.
Opening up the box you'll find the semi-hardshell case and the manual underneath. Everything else is packed inside the case. The headphones themselves are inside a cloth bag, presumable for extra protecting, while the USB cable, 3.5 mm audio cable and inflight adapter are all tucked into a mesh pocket inside the case.
The Sennheiser MOMENTUM Wireless are available in two colors – black and ivory – though at the time of this writing only the black model seems to actually be for sale on Sennheiser's website. Both models look great, with the ivory having a slightly more modern look and the the black sporting the more classic pro look. The combination of exposed metal and stitched leather in the headband and earcups makes for an elegant look that should look good on everyone.
The materials should have been a hint, but the build feels very solid. That might lead you to assume that this is a heavy pair of headphones, but they actually feel quite light, whether you're holding them or wearing them. The headphones fold for portability, and the carrying case that is included is very high quality. Often an afterthought in other headphones, the case is nice enough that I could see it being sold as a third-party case, though I suspect that Sennheiser would prefer to keep it exclusive to their headphones.
Simplicity seems to be a primary focus for the Sennheiser MOMENTUM Wireless, and that's clear from the moment you turn them on. There is no dedicated Bluetooth button here, just turn the headphones on and they enter pairing mode. Then either pair from your device's Bluetooth menu or tap your NFC-enable device on the NFC icon.
If you'd rather connect the old fashioned way, a 3.5 mm cable is included, and these headphones can even be used in passive mode – that is, with the power off. Obviously you won't get active noise cancellation, and the frequency range is somewhat diminished, but it's nice to know that, unlike many Bluetooth headphones, these will keep you in music even after the battery runs out.
Unlike the last pair of headphones we looked at, the controls are minimal in keeping with the general minimalist aesthetic of the Sennheiser MOMENTUM Wireless. There is a power / multifunction button, and the + / – slider for controlling volume and that's it.
It isn't clear which scientists have been pulled off of major world problems in order to improve battery life in Bluetooth headphones, but we're glad for the decision nonetheless. Sennheiser claims 22 hours of play time for the Momentum Wireless, and that's including ANC. We found those claims to be true during testing as well, measuring just over 21.5 hours.
Charge time is claimed as 3 hours and using a standard multiport USB charger, it took just a hair over that time. As Sennheiser doesn't include a wall charger, the charge time will vary depending on the charger you have on hand.
The box that contains the Momentum Wireless boasts of the headphones' NoiseGard technology, which uses 4 microphones for its active noise cancellation. Whatever it is, it works well, as noise cancellation was very effective. Unlike some other headphones which would "lose track" of the noise they were supposed to cancel as I moved around, these kept the noise out steadfastly.
The lows here reach very deep, with powerful sub bass that you can truly feel. While the bass is well represented, it never sounds overly boomy or steps out of its place to walk all over other frequencies, and even on songs with fast moving bass notes, the low end never tended towards muddy.
The mids sound somewhat forward, though the 4 kHz bark that is present in some mid-forward headphones is thankfully not present here. Vocals come through loud and clear and electric guitars get all the bite and snarl that they deserve.
The highs provide nice detail without harshness. Tambourine that is all but silent on less detailed headphones came through clearly here, and there was plenty of room around cymbals. The sound of fingertips sliding on strings is preserved without becoming cringe-worthy.
After testing so many, I've come not to expect much in terms of soundstage in wireless headphones, but here it is very nice, whether you're plugged in or not. Simply put, these headphones are just a joy to listen to in every way.
Looking at the headphones that the Sennheiser MOMENTUM Wireless will generally be compared to – the Parrot Zik 2.0, the Plantronics that we reviewed last week – they're the most expensive option, but if price is your main focus, you probably weren't seriously considering these anyway. Sure, they're pricier, but you do get your money's worth here, and the sound quality is superior, if not drastically so, to the two aforementioned pairs of headphones. The Sennheisers offer a more balanced approach to sound, so if accuracy is your thing, these are the go to pair of wireless cans for you.