They are all gone now--Bird, Dizzy, Prez, Miles, Buddy, Monk, Mingus, Max and the many more whom time has presently forgotten. Max Roach kept the time for all of them so maybe it is fitting that he would be the last to leave us. Fortunately, he left a blueprint for us—they all did. Traces of it appear in re-mastered digital notes available for 99 cent downloads and in old fanzines found in the dusty tombs of libraries or in scholarly treatises written in bounded format in your local book store. But beyond the music and the twice-told stories is the towering strength and will to create art that holds importance beyond both the creation and the creator. That is what Max Roach and the masters of modern music left for us.
Each of these men participated in the confluence of creative energies that marked a glorious moment in time when music and innovation were alchemized into a sharp object that cut gaping holes in the prevailing orthodoxy. They were cultural arsonists, men who banded together though individually they were as different as night and day. From the brutal determination of Mingus to the abstract eccentricities of Thelonius Monk to the selfish yet undeniable genius of Charlie Parker, these men covered the gambit of creativity and self expression—as men and as artists. Max and Miles bonded because they would rather say fuck you than offer you a fake smile. We’re not talking about gangsta rap intimidation, more like I’m a grown man-and-you-will-respect-me type action that has proven over and over to be far more subversive than overstated accounts of ill-conceived aggression. Even Dizzy, the most market friendly of the original giants would let you know where you stood. He smiled wide but he didn’t buck, a distinction that is important to understand. In fact, everything about these men was distinct and everything about these men is important to understand.
And Max Roach kept time for all of them. Over the course of a career that literally spanned over 6 decades, the man demonstrated that the drums had as much range as the keys and could convey delicacy as convincingly as it could deliver power. It was this ability that led Max to contribute to the formulation of almost every important musical form of the 20 th century. He was in on the ground floor of the creation of Be Bop. When Max and Kenny Clarke began using the cymbal to keep time for Bird and Diz everything shifted. People began sitting and listening as Jazz moved from various formations of the two-step to deep concentration. The action moved from one’s feet to one’s cerebellum and for the lucky—one’s imagination.
Max Roach was as imaginative as they come. His retention of a suave and elegant aura while utterly dismantling a set of drums would become a visual touchstone for the music and the ideas of freedom it communicated. It was the music and he was the driver—the simultaneous teacher and student—getting voice from Bird and Diz and giving voice to Miles and more. He played on the seminal “Birth of Cool” sessions that showed that marked the birth of “Cool Jazz.” His input allowed Gil Evan’s sketches to pop and showed young Dewey Miles Davis had the brains and the chops to join the pantheon of musical giants. Next, Max moved into the leadership role and laid the groundwork for Hard Bop through his partnership with the great saxophonist Clifford Brown. The two musician’s musicians—along with a super band that included Sonny Rollins—slow-cooked the Be Bop stew and added touches of the Blues and Gospel for an extra flavor.
If Max had stopped creating when his musical partner Clifford Brown died in that accident in 1956 and his world fell apart, his legacy would have been complete. But instead of quitting he got stronger and more determined. In fact, Roach became increasingly audacious with the music. He began drumming on stage and in the studio without accompaniment, his conceptual use of the tom-toms and the bass drum and, of course, the cymbals detonating all conceptions of where the drums fit in the pantheon of musical instruments. Decades past the innovations established at the start of the Be Bop era Max continued to push the music past the accepted stretches of 4/4 time.
In addition, he had the verve to put a message in the music and could lay claim to aspects of the Civil Rights Movement. The music industry trembled when Max and Abbey Lincoln and Oscar Brown Jr. got together in the summer of 1960 and released We Insist, Freedom Now! A pointed and directed album of protest music that hit the industry like a Molotov cocktail of power and insurrection beautifully and forcefully translated into melody and rhythm. We Insist scared the hell out of cowered industry professionals so they put the “closed shop” sign up for Max and blacklisted him from the record shelves for much of the 60’s. Some years later, younger men like Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown would add earth to the spectral idea that Earth people might sacrifice worldly goods for abstract notions like principle and sense of mission. The example set by Max Roach would show them how. Roach filled in the space between the Paul Robeson’s and the Ali’s; keeping the sublime selflessness—and selfishness—of self-sacrifice alive without breaking a sweat.
Pressing and pressing to share his chosen form of catharsis. Max just kept on innovating and moving forward because he had this music thing and he had this vision thing and he had this thing that the music industry or society at large just could not take away. By the end of the 60’s he had become one of the most active proponents of the American Black Arts Movement (BAM); in the 70’s he helped form M-Boom, an all percussion outfit that included his daughter Maxine on the viola; at the dawn of the Hip Hop era, Max was found onstage providing break-beat for Fab Five Freddy and the New York City Breakers.
So can we, in honor of men such as Max Roach, at least stop ridiculing art that is made in ignorance of profit margin spreadsheets? And to all of the artists who are willing to sacrifice for their work and face marginalization in a society that gives no chips for craft and consciousness. To all of the artists who have sacrificed and endeavored to speak of morality and justice but have been marginizalized for not mastering the ability to speak of their work in marketing terms instead. It is important that you understand Bird, Dizzy, Prez, Miles, Buddy, Monk, Mingus, and the many more whom time has presently forgotten. And it is direly important that you understand Max Roach. He kept time for all of them. He kept time for all of us. |
