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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
