BeBop loses a drumming pioneer.

Walkinghairball · Post by **Walkinghairball** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:10 pm

Jazz Master Max Roach Dies at 83
By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer
3 hours ago

NEW YORK - Max Roach, the master percussionist whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a wide-ranging career where he collaborated with artists from Duke Ellington to rapper Fab Five Freddy, has died after a long illness. He was 83.

The self-taught musical prodigy died Wednesday night at an undisclosed hospital in Manhattan, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records, one of Roach's labels. No additional details were available, he said Thursday.

Roach received his first musical break at age 16, filling in for three nights in 1940 when Ellington's drummer fell ill.

Roach's performance led him to the legendary Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where he joined luminaries Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the burgeoning bebop movement. In 1944, Roach joined Gillespie and Coleman Hawkins in one of the first bebop recording sessions.

What distinguished Roach from other drummers were his fast hands and ability to simultaneously maintain several rhythms. By layering different beats and varying the meter, Roach pushed jazz beyond the boundaries of standard 4/4 time. His dislocated beats helped define bebop.

Roach's innovative use of cymbals for melodic lines, and tom-toms and bass drums for accents, helped elevate the percussionist from mere timekeeper to featured performer _ on a par with the trumpeter and saxophonist.

"One of the grand masters of our music," Gillespie once observed.

In a 1988 essay in The New York Times, Wynton Marsalis wrote of Roach: "All great instrumentalists have a superior quality of sound, and his is one of the marvels of contemporary music. ... The roundness and nobility of sound on the drums and the clarity and precision of the cymbals distinguishes Max Roach as a peerless master."

Throughout the jazz upheaval of the 1940s and '50s, Roach played bebop with the Charlie Parker Quintet and cool bop with the Miles Davis Capitol Orchestra. He joined trumpeter Clifford Brown in playing hard bop, a jazz form that maintained bebop's rhythmic drive while incorporating the blues and gospel.

In 1952, Roach and bassist-composer Charles Mingus founded Debut Records. Among the short-lived label's releases was a famed 1953 Toronto performance in Massey Hall, featuring Roach, Mingus, Parker, Gillespie and pianist Bud Powell.

But by the mid-1950s, Roach had watched several of his friends _ including Parker _ die from heroin addiction. In 1956, Roach was further devastated when Brown died in a car accident.

After his own struggle with drugs and alcohol, Roach rebounded with the help of his first wife, singer Abbey Lincoln. Married in 1962, they divorced eight years later.

Roach re-emerged in the 1960s free jazz era with a new political consciousness. Albums like "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite" reflected his support of black activism.

Over the next decades, Roach expanded his repertoire and explored new challenges. He taught at the University of Massachusetts, traveled to Ghana in search of new music, and performed with groups from Japan and Cuba.

He also formed an all-percussion ensemble known as M'Boom, a quartet and a double quartet that included Roach's daughter Maxine Roach on viola.

Roach even worked with rapper Fab Five Freddy in the early 1980s. Ignoring critics, Roach insisted rap had a place on music's "boundless palette."

Roach, who in 1988 became the first jazz musician to receive a MacArthur Fellowship "genius award," said his curiosity reflected his sense of obligation to music. He was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1995.

Max Roach was born in New Land, N.C., on Jan. 10, 1924. His family moved four years later to a Brooklyn apartment, where a player piano left by the previous tenants gave Roach his musical introduction.

Using player piano rolls of Jelly Roll Morton and Albert Ammons, Roach played along by putting his fingers on the keys and pedals as they rose and fell. But he was looking for another instrument to play when he began singing with the children's choir at the Concord Baptist Church.

Roach found a snare drum, and was hooked. His father gave the eighth-grader his first set of drums, and Roach was drumming professionally while still in high school.

He was survived by five children: sons Daryl and Raoul, and daughters Maxine, Ayl and Dara.

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:56 pm

Just caught this announcement on local evening news.
I hope his legacy will live on in modern musicians as
tribute to a great talent of this world.

http://www.comcast.net/entertainment/in ... 41099.html

KaelMwithascrubbrush · Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:31 pm

NOOOOOOOOO

He was the first drummer that really turned me on to jazz drumming. I heard his groove on Sonny Rollins's "Mambo Bop" and was totally blown away! His musicality was inspiring. I know Elvin Jones--may he also rest in peace--was really inspired by Roach.

The drumming world lost one of its greatest of greats.

zepboy · Post by **zepboy** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:19 am

KaelMwithascrubbrush wrote: The drumming world lost one of its greatest of greats.

There's an understatement!

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:38 am

Last night, I listened to "Der Trommler"
I did not know the piece and have never before
listened to what I now regard
as a drummer's masterpiece.
(Just got the R30 discs last week.)

It occurred to me, as I listened for the first time
to this amazing solo, that I was listening to it
in some way as a remembrance of Max Roach.

Der Trommler = The Drummer

Big Blue Owl · Post by **Big Blue Owl** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:21 pm

Wendy wrote:
It occurred to me, as I listened for the first time
to this amazing solo, that I was listening to it
in some way as a remembrance of Max Roach.

Wow, that's very cool.

I just listened to a 1987 interview on NPR with Roach. It was interspersed with musical segments that were blowing me away. Since I had no idea what Max Roach looked like, I imagined Neil doing all those lightning-fast rolls and complicated combinations (Neil young-style, with hair and handlebar.)

I'll wager our Professor is a big fan of The Man.

ElfDude · Post by **ElfDude** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:27 pm

It's nice that he made it to 83 though. So many of the great ones leave us too soon.

Kinda cool that one of the guitar greats, Les Paul, is still performing and he's over 90.

Walkinghairball · Post by **Walkinghairball** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:43 pm

And BB King....................................he's not doing too good.

KaelMwithascrubbrush · Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:17 pm

Wendy wrote:Last night, I listened to "Der Trommler"
I did not know the piece and have never before
listened to what I now regard
as a drummer's masterpiece...

The 3/4 (waltz) section of the solo is an homage to Max Roach, who originally performed that lick as a solo. Peart learned the solo during the Burning for Buddy sessions.

Wendy · Post by **Wendy** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:56 pm

KaelMwithascrubbrush wrote:
Wendy wrote:Last night, I listened to "Der Trommler"
I did not know the piece and have never before
listened to what I now regard
as a drummer's masterpiece...
The 3/4 (waltz) section of the solo is an homage to Max Roach, who originally performed that lick as a solo. Peart learned the solo during the Burning for Buddy sessions.

Are you serious K? I really wasn't aware that this piece had
anything to do with Max Roach, I was just thinking about
him while I listened. WOW, that's cosmic!

Walkinghairball · Post by **Walkinghairball** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:45 am

Wendy wrote:
KaelMwithascrubbrush wrote:
Wendy wrote:Last night, I listened to "Der Trommler"
I did not know the piece and have never before
listened to what I now regard
as a drummer's masterpiece...
The 3/4 (waltz) section of the solo is an homage to Max Roach, who originally performed that lick as a solo. Peart learned the solo during the Burning for Buddy sessions.
Are you serious K? I really wasn't aware that this piece had
anything to do with Max Roach, I was just thinking about
him while I listened. WOW, that's cosmic!

Neil does a lot of Homage playing Wendy. The verse/ride section in Test for Echo,(Tough talking hood boys), is a drum groove learned from Dave Weckyl, another Jazz guy. Mercy, mercy, mercy from the Buddy Rich big band is the song the groove came from, so I guess he is actually paying Buddy. My bad.

KaelMwithascrubbrush · Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:37 pm

In his Modern Drummer article, Peart points out that the intro of "Snakes and Arrows" is taken directly from Weckel's intro on "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." The second solo passage of Mal Nar is an homage to Steve Gadd. NEP is very gracious when it comes to acknowledging his inspirations.

Some of Peart's broken tom patterns in his solo remind me somewhat of Rick Marotta's work with Peter Gabriel as well.