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Inside
This Issue: Inside This Issue “We Both Speak African”: Gillespie, Pozo, and the making of Afro-Cuban Jazz by David F. Garcia Reprising Gershwin, book review by Ray Allen Indian Concepts in the Music of John Coltrane by Carl Clements Leroy Jenkins: Reflections by George Lewis Women in Electronic Music, CD review by Doug Cohen |
Max Roach: Bringing the
(M)Boom Back by Salim
Max Roach (1924-2007) Photo courtesy of the During the Harlem Renaissance a poet lamented “you took my boom boom away.” He was writing of the attempt to strip African Americans of their African cultural heritage, symbolically represented by the antebellum prohibition against African drumming. Maxwell Lemuel Roach (1924-2007), master jazz percussionist and composer, did as much as anyone to bring back the boom of drums in African American culture. On August 16, 2007 Max Roach, at the age of eighty-three, made his transition, but not before changing the face of music, and inspiring and mentoring generations of musicians and music lovers. His vast musical achievements exceed the merely musical. Max Roach was an institution, the embodiment of our culture, and a man of ideas and action who was consistently brilliant and consistently courageous. Roach’s virtuosity and strength as a drummer was unmatched. He was among the generation of musicians who called their art “modern music,” later dubbed as “bebop” by the critical establishment. Indeed, these musicians were consummate modernists inasmuch as they were virtuosic, transcendent artists who heralded not only new techniques in music, but new visions of the world and the place of their culture within it. More than any other generation of musical geniuses, Roach and his co-creators Charles Parker, John Birks Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Earl Powell combined a mastery of both diatonic music, bequeathed to us by Europe, and blues-based improvisation, courtesy of African American praxis. That these musicians created modern American music while living in Jim Crow conditions as artists and as citizens probably provided fodder for much of the pathos and humor (as opposed to sentimentality) that makes for good blues-based music. The scourge of institutional racism prevented a more widespread appreciation of their work at the time of its inception, but today the immensity of their contribution to twentieth-century art and culture is undeniable, if not yet fully acknowledged. While Kenny Clarke is generally acknowledged as the first innovator of bebop drumming for moving the pulse from the bass drum to the ride cymbal while dropping bombs with the bass drum and providing asymmetrical accents on the snare, Roach soon emerged as his equal. Due in part to Clarke becoming an ex-patriot and to Roach’s supreme musicality, the latter became the premier bebop drummer of his generation, with the great Roy Haynes his only living peer. Roach’s dedication led to an unprecedented virtuosity, as he could play any tempo with ease and subtlety. And he was known as a melodic drummer. How many of those are there? Roach could translate melodies to the trap drums, and when accompanying a soloist his rhythms contained the shadings and nuances that listeners expected only from pitched instruments. He once told me that when he was a young musician involved in the modern music movement they would play five or six sets on their regular shows during the evening until past midnight. Then they would go uptown to a club like Minton’s and jam until seven or eight in the morning, experimenting with the new sounds in front of an audience, testing their mettle against one another. After a quick meal they would go to each other’s houses to study, practice, and rehearse until they had to catch a few winks, and then start the cycle all over again. He added wryly, “but we were after something.” Were he merely an extraordinary musician Roach’s story might have ended right there. After all, most of us are not innovators, and even the few who are rarely go on to make other meaningful contributions. Not so with Roach. Effortlessly he moved on after the bebop era, never losing the lessons learned, and never stuck in time or in any way “genre impaired.” He co-led with Clifford Brown one of the three leading hard-bop combos of the 1950s (the other two being the Miles Davis Quintet and the Jazz Messengers). Tragically, Brown and the pianist Richie Powell would die young in a car accident. But Roach continued. He discovered one of the greatest singers and lyricists in jazz, Abbey Lincoln. In fact, she credits him with transforming her from a cabaret singer into a jazz musician, from a sex symbol to a leading artist. Their collaborations were historic, not only for the originality and vibrancy of the music, but also for their self-conscious political and social messages. As I look at my prized Beauford Smith photograph of Max Roach and Malcolm X for inspiration, I am reminded that Roach was one of the most outspoken artists of his generation. He fought against racism in the industry and in society, participating with the equally outspoken Charles Mingus in boycotts against the mainstream industry, including famously the Newport Jazz Festival, and in launching an artist owned record company. He took his lumps but never abandoned the fight. What is more, Roach never stopped growing as an artist. He was able to collaborate with as wide a spectrum of performers as anyone in jazz. As a band leader he formed the percussion ensemble Mboom, and an unusual group that augmented a traditional jazz quartet with a string quartet. He performed in duos with people as diverse as pianist Cecil Taylor, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and saxophonist Archie Shepp. And he performed solo! He encouraged the iconoclasts, including the so-called avant garde; he welcomed the hip hop generation and all forms of the music. In an age when people who could play changes in the bebop style would disparage those who could not, Roach welcomed all comers. He was not only an innovator and an elder statesman of jazz, but a musician who could play on anybody’s terms. Sometimes I
wonder if I will live long enough to see the day when busts of Roach, Parker,
and Gillespie are as ubiquitous as those of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Maybe not, as ironically, jazz musicians do
not yet enjoy the widespread acceptance and reputation in —Salim Washington ISAM home Who we
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