Max Roach

Max Roach, who died today at the age of 83, could turn a set of drums into an orchestra. Jazz has plenty of drummers who are powerful, or subtle, or swinging, but few who combined those qualities as powerfully as Roach. He was probably the most sheerly musical percussionist I’ve ever heard, a verdict delivered by many of his colleagues. Charles Mingus, who had a stormy professional and personal relationship with Roach — they launched a groundbreaking artist-owned record label together, and recorded on some landmark records — once said that he came into a club performance during the middle of one of Roach’s solos, and correctly guessed the song being played simply by listening to Roach’s sophisticated soloing on the changes. Max Roach was a complete musician.  

Shortly after winning his MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 1988, Roach mounted a traveling showcase that took in every aspect of his career: his basic quartet work, his all-percussion ensemble M’Boom, and the double-quartet incorporating the string ensemble founded by his daughter, Maxine. It was one of the most delightful shows I’ve ever seen, and at the end, Roach walked onto the stage alone and played a solo on nothing more than a high-hat cymbal. He made it as engrossing as a solo played on a full drum kit, and if you don’t believe me, check it out here. He could improvise at tempos that would have most other drummers falling off their stools, but there was always something more than just athleticism going on when he played.

Roach’s most famous work was the seminal We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, an uncompromising call-to-arms for the early years of the civil rights movement, but novices might be better off starting with the inviting, often dazzling work Roach recorded with Clifford Brown – a teamup tragically cut short by Brown’s death in an auto accident. The recordings with M’Boom are charming as well. 

A one-off trio session with Mingus and Duke Ellington in 1962 produced Money Jungle, one of my favorite albums from any of the three parties. Mingus and Roach were barely speaking during the session — Duke had to use all his diplomatic skills to keep Mingus from storming out — and the antagonism comes through on the title track and “Very Special.” But the album also includes “Fleurette Africaine,” a hauntingly beautiful melody created under conditions approaching spontaneous composition, and on other tracks the antagonism translates into challenge: unlike the session Duke recorded with John Coltrane, Money Jungle shows the venerable bandleader being pushed to his limits by the young turks.

But that’s what great jazz is all about: not just individual musicians playing at their peak, but individual musicians pushing each other to their peaks. Roach shepherded some of the greats that way — as radical was We Insist! might have been, it still had room for old school saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who spent the session looking at Roach and saying, “You wrote this? My my!” High praise indeed from a musician like the Hawk, and praise that Roach earned many times during a long and remarkable career.