August 17, 2007

Members Don't Git Weary

Posted by Tomas Palermo at 12:39AM

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Jazz drummer and percussionist Max Roach died Thursday August 16, 2007 in New York City, he was 83. Roach's career spanned over five decades and he successfully played live into his '70s.

Roach was to jazz drumming in the '40s-60s what Jimi Hendrix was to the guitar, a force like nothing that had been heard before, a sound that swept you away. Where Hendrix conjured up other-worldly noises from his Strat and played strings with his teeth, Roach bashed his cymbals furiously and skipped over the toms with African tribal dexterity. The African connection was all-important to Roach who incorporated African themes in his music, and was an active and vocal part of the American and global Civil Rights movement.

In 1960, Roach released We Insist! -- Freedom Now Suite (Candid), which indie online jazz music retailer Dusty Groove describes:

"One of the most righteous albums that Max Roach ever cut and a monumental jazz release from the heart of the Civil Rights era. There's a political bent to the record, served up in righteous lyrics penned by Oscar Brand Jr., and sung by Abbey Lincoln at her most biting. Roach gathered a special group of musicians for the record including regular partners Booker Little on trumpet and Julian Priester on trombone alongside surprising guests like Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax, Olatunji on percussion, and Ray Mantilla on congas. Absent of piano, the album stretches out with soaring horn passages next to the vocals, and plenty of percussion at the bottom to get things moving. Titles include "Driva' Man," "Tears for Johannesburg," "Freedom Day," "All Africa," and "Prayer/Protest/Peace."

As the titles reveal, Roach connected the struggles in America with those of South Africa, and, in general the still-colonized Africa of that era. Like today's G8/World Bank protesters in Seattle, Genoa or Germany, Roach connected the local with the global, economic justice with human rights, and his African roots with America's present.

1968, the year of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, Roach released the monumental Members Don't Git Weary (Atlantic). If you're looking for a quintessential Roach performance, check this album. Musically, Stanley Cowell's piano mastery guides the exploratory melodic arrangements, as trumpeter Charles Toliver and sax player Gary Bartz (now a UC Berkeley professor) and jazz vocalist Andy Bey add nuance to Roach's tour-de-force drumming. AllMusic wrote:

One of the finest post-bop dates Roach recorded during that decade was 1968's Members Don't Git Weary, which finds the drummer leading a cohesive modal quintet that employs Gary Bartz on alto sax, Charles Tolliver on trumpet, Stanley Cowell on acoustic and electric piano, and Jymie Merritt on electric bass. Despite the use of electric instruments, this isn't an album that emphasizes rock or funk elements or predicts the fusion explosion that was just around the corner -- Members Don't Git Weary is very much a straight-ahead effort, and the harmonic richness of modal playing is illustrated by such gems as Cowell's "Equipoise," Bartz's "Libra," and Merritt's "Absolutions."

Roach was as much about honoring his roots as pushing toward the future. His playing has influenced a generation of not only jazz, but also rock and hip-hop drummers. The world is now without the three greatest jazz drummers of the be-bop era: Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Max Roach. A huge gap has been left by their departures. But as with any timeless music, new cats will learn and absorb their lessons. Let's hope the next generation will be as bold with their drumming and politics as Roach was. Long live the explosive cymbal rocker, and human rights leader Mr. Max Roach.

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Gang Starr's "Jazz Thing," a tribute to jazz greats that originally appeared on the Mo Betta Blues soundtrack:

Its roots are in the sounds of the African

Or should I say the Mother -- bringin us back again

From the drummin' on the Congo,

we came with a strong flow and continue to grow

Feet move, to the beat of the t'balo

Now dig the story and follow

For then it landed, on American soil

Through the sweat, the blood, and the toil

Hear, "Praise the Lord," shouted on chain gangs

Pain they felt, but it helped them to maintain

Scott Joplin's rags, Bessie Smith's blues

St. Louis blues, they were all the news

Ringin' smooth -- in all the listeners ears

Fulfillin' the needs, and plantin' the seeds

of a jazz thing