BlogHer - Max Roach dies, and the jazz community mourns - Comments

I wouldn't miss hanging out with both of you!

lauriewrites — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:20:03 -0500

I've met Professor Kim in person, Mata...she knows she is one of my BlogHer heroes, and you will undoubtedly be next. : ) I'm in DC which has its fair amount of jazz music, but nothing like NYC. I heard no live music in Chicago which really disappointed me...someday!

I'm always up for a show!

Laurie

Don't forget Sonny

Mata H — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:02:37 -0500

Sonny Rollins still has his chops as well -- and is due to be putting out another CD soon, I hear. I had not heard Miche before -- thanks for the tip. We are still blessed with Jon Faddis. Also, have you heard Renee Rosnes? She smokes on piano.

Abbey Lincoln (who used to be married to Max Roach) is a trip and a half. I loved the CD where she did a duet with Savion Glover. She played, he tap danced.

Laurie -- you -- me -- straight ahead and old school ! Plan on it for the next BlogHer. Now we need the right city with a good jazz club!! This will definitely influence my vote on cities... :-)

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also jazzes along at Time's Fool

By the way, Abbey Lincoln is still with us

Kim Pearson — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:00:08 -0500

And still singing -- her latest is Abbey Sings Abbey. Here are she and Max together, doing "Love for Sale."

I am a jazz baby to my heart. My mother had a minute doing backup for Arthur Prysock, I'm told. She knew a lot of jazz musicians during her time in California in the 60s. Some of my best memories with her involve her sitting wth me, playing Miles, Lee Morgan, MJQ, or Billie, and telling me stories. She stopped telling those stories once she focused her singing on Gospel music, but the lessons about the music remained. I've done my best to pass that appreciation on to my kids, and it's one of the things we share.

Yes, the old guard is passing, but what is amazing is that we still have so many treasures still with us: Nancy Wilson had a CD out within the last couple of years, for example. I saw Gloria Lynne a few years ago -- she still had it.

And there are younger people out there -- Dizzy Gillespie's daughter, Jeannie Bryson is wonderful. Orrin Evans is a young piano phenom from the old school. And part of the reason I love Miche Braden so much is because she swung with the legends -- Hamp, Betty Carter, Brubeck, the Funk Brothers -- but she's can still jam with young Turks like James Carter and Regina Carter. And Stanley Jordan is playing again.

Next BlogHer -- You me, Laurie -- we'll get together and swing it straight-ahead and old school . Whaddya say?

One of the reasons I am such .

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Laurie , thanks !

Mata H — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:56:28 -0500

The Mingus big band that his wife got together used to have a regular gig in NYC and I saw them a couple of times -- it is so important to hear the music that we love in a live setting. It is a totally different experience.

If you are a piano lover you might want to pick up a Bill Evans CD if you have not already -- or Ahmad Jamal or Oscar Peterson or John Lewis or Errol Garner or Red Garland ..oh lordy me, do not get me started..I will deluge you with names.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs jazzily at Time's Fool

Thanks for covering this, Mata

lauriewrites — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:19:38 -0500

I love music and am learning to appreciate jazz much more in this phase of my life. I started with Miles Davis and the female vocalists like Billie Holliday and Ella like many people but moved on to Charles Mingus and now the Charles Mingus Big Band that his wife organized. I am a big fan of the older musicians both living and dead, and as a piano lover really enjoy Ellis Marsalis. I don't think many people know that the patriarch of that family is a great performer in his own right.

There is so much to listen to and so many different styles. Just the amazing things that are done with traditional instruments move me. It is sad to see the older generation pass on, but the way they've influenced music will surely continue. I heard of Roach's passing this morning on NPR and resolved to find and listen to some of his recordings. Thanks for the tip.

laurie

High (hat) Fives Kim

Mata H — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:53:23 -0500

Kim, when I saw the video of him playing Mr Hi Hat again, it was like all time just fell away...can you imagine Max and Connie Kay in some heavenly combo with Krupa, Rich and Belsen? Holy mercy, the stars would tremble in the firmament. I saw Connie a bunch of times -- what a low key genius he was !! The MJQ tribute album that they released after he passed (some previously unreleased tracks) is breath-taking.

The night I saw Max play Mr Hi Hat was a benefit and Dizz was with him that night. It was one amazing night.

So you are a jazz fan too, eh? Great stuff!

--Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs relentlessly at Time's Fool

Thanks for this appreciation

Kim Pearson — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:01:35 -0500

It's nice to hear the master on the high-hat one more time. There must be one heck of a jam session in Heaven right about now. The rhythm section alone! Max, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Connie Kay, Louis Bellson...man oh, man....

Your fellow jazz lover,
Kim

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Max Roach dies, and the jazz community mourns

Mata H — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:48:01 -0500

Music makes many people feel closer to God, or closer to what they regard as The Universal Good, or the Life Force or Higher Power. That is certainly true for me, but the music that brings me there, that spins my soul into the clouds in sweet release isn't "churchy" music or New Age softsounds or opera or country western -- it is jazz, real, bopping, serious jazz. It is Dizzy and 'Trane and Ella and Sarah and Sonny and Lady Day. It is Duke and MJQ and Bill Evans, Monk, Miles and Bird. It is Carmen McRae, Abbey Lincoln, Joe Williams, Mel Torme, and Billy Ekstine., too.

And it is Max Roach. Max, who died last night at age 83.

Max never stopped innovating in music or advocating for justice. He was unquestionably the first bop drummer, and he ended his musical life working with rappers and hip hop artists to expand his musical influence and experience even further.

Maxwell Lemuel Roach was repeatedly voted the best jazz drummer of all time. He had this uncanny ability to express several different rhythms at one time. I watched him play at a benefit concert in NYC. I had heard him on countless recordings. I was ready to hear him have at it with a whole drum set. But he came on stage with a stool and a "hi hat". A hi hat is a cymbal set, also called a "foot cymbal". It is one cymbal facing up, and one facing down, both on the same single pole-stand, kind of a cymbal sandwich. It can be played by striking it and by using a foot pedal to bring the two cymbals together.Max, who was a gangly and tall kind of guy, took out his sticks and said he was going to play a composition called "Mr. High Hat". Max sat down, settled in and took a breath. The room was still.

Then he started to make magic happen.

With the barest of instruments, Max called forth the angels, luring and seducing them to earth with the compelling call of that cymbal set. It sounded like rain, or drums, tap shoes or thunder or rivers or rain on rivers, or a million ballbearings rolling down a tin roof. His hands were a blur, his body entirely involved. You could almost see the electric energy coming from his long legs up through his torso and down into his hands. Max's whole body was involved when he played. He was the instrument -- the cymbal was along for the ride. At certain points I felt my heart would leap out of my chest. At others I found myself grinning broadly at some clever musical joke.

When he was done, Max bowed his head for a second and then looked out at us, smiling. He knew he nailed it, got to us, called down the angels one more time. And he dug having done it. His smile was slow, but lovingly sly, smart and honest. Max had connected with something beyond himself, beyond us, beyond the city we were in. Max had found that wondrous place where everything really is one, and it flies, soars and sings. He was glowing from it, alive with it, like an ember that fell from the holiest place in the sky

Max was an artist with an artist's gift for reaching the angels. In Max's case, I'm sure he even got God's attention. I can just imagine the group that I hope is playing in heaven tonight -- Max and Dizz and Trane and Bud Powell and all the bopping guys and bopping gals that have gone before.

Max's death is the kind of thing that makes a person believe in heaven -=- if for no other reason than it is unimaginable that such musical genius and love could ever really die.
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RELATED AND MUSICAL LINKS
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Here is a sample of Max playing about a minute of "Mr High Hat" .

Here is the full version along with his comments. It lasts about 5 minutes, and gives a fabulous view of this man's mastery, and his generous character.

At Adrian's blog there is an MP3 of Max playing Cherokee with Clifford Brown, and the quote that I am sure a lot of people share with Adrian.

I hear about musicians dying just about every day, it seems, so it doesn’t always phase me, but hearing about Max Roach’s passing was sad.

Shiela Lennon's blog, Subterranean Homepage News lists many places on the web that you can go to see clips of Max or to hear his music.

Doug Ramsey shares some personal memories of Max that tell so much about this brilliant and sweet man's character.

In 1981 when I was news director at KGO-TV in San Francisco, Roach was playing with his quintet at the Keystone Korner. That was the week of the annual contest to choose the best bell ringer among San Francisco's cable car gripmen and conductors. I told Todd Barkan, who ran the club, that if he could arrange for Roach and the winner of the contest to get together, we'd send a crew. Barkan was leery; he wasn't sure that the dignified Mr. Roach would go for what he might consider a gimmick.

Max liked the idea. The winner, Carl Payne, a gripman who over the years won the contest ten times, showed up one afternoon at Keystone Korner with a cable car bell mounted on a frame. Roach was waiting at his drum set. Mr. Payne could meter on that cumbersome brass bell. He invented patterns that stimulated Max and the two spent a half hour or so playing for, to and with one another. I have never heard anything quite like it -- Max Roach trading fours with a cable car gripman. It made a good story on that evening's six o'clock newscast, and a memory that has stayed with me for a quarter of a century.

The NY Times obit for Max