[FA Worldmusic] Max Roach 01/10/24 to 08/15/07

[Ian Menzies]

The first big jazz concert I saw when I was still in high school was the Max
Roach Quartet. It would not be an overstatement to say it changed my life.

>From a bio at the link below:

In a profession star-crossed by early deaths -- especially the bebop
division -- Max Roach is a shining survivor, one of the last living giants
from the birth of bebop. He and Kenny Clarke instigated a revolution in jazz
drumming that persists to this day; instead of the swing approach of
spelling out the pulse with the bass drum, Roach shifted the emphasis to the
ride cymbal. The result was a lighter, far more flexible texture, giving
drummers more freedom to explore the possibilities of their drum kits and
drop random "bombs" on the snare drum, while allowing bop virtuosos on the
front lines to play at faster speeds. To this base, Roach added sterling
qualities of his own -- a ferocious drive, the ability to play a solo with a
definite storyline, mixing up pitches and timbres, the deft use of silence,
the dexterity to use the brushes as brilliantly as the sticks. He would use
cymbals as gongs and play mesmerizing solos on the tom-toms, creating
atmosphere as well as keeping the groove pushing forward.

But Roach didn't stop there, unlike other jazz pioneers who changed the
world when they were young yet became set in their ways as they grew older.
He has always had the curiosity and the willingness to grow as a musician
and as a man, moving beyond bop into new compositional structures, unusual
instrument lineups, unusual time signatures, atonality, music for Broadway
musicals, television, film and the symphony hall, even working with a rapper
well ahead of the jazz/hip-hop merger. An outspoken man, he became a fervent
supporter of civil rights and racial equality, and that no doubt hurt his
career at various junctures. At one point in his militant period in 1961, he
disrupted a Miles Davis/Gil Evans concert in Carnegie Hall by marching to
the edge of the stage holding a "Freedom Now" placard protesting the Africa
Relief Foundation (for which the event was a benefit).

There is more at the link. RIP Max
Ian M

http://www.answers.com/topic/max-roach?cat=entertainment