Diversity MBA Magazine - April 2008 - (Page 78) Max Roach: A Master in Time by Mark V. Reynolds American music lost one of its most acclaimed architects last August, when drummer, composer, and educator Maxwell Lemuel Roach passed on at age 83 after a long illness. Roach was the last surviving major figure from the bebop years of the mid-1940’s, when young jazz musicians broke from the pop leanings of lukewarm big-band music to forge a new musical genre based on daring improvisations at breakneck tempos. He continued to innovate for the rest of his career, establishing and composing for non-traditional jazz ensembles ranging from duos to orchestras. Roach elevated the drummer’s role from mere timekeeper to equal participant with the front-line horns, using accents on his snare drum and cymbals and a driving pulse to propel his bandmates. He also brought out the musical potential of the drum kit, playing solos full of melody and nuance. His playing could be crisp and light on its feet or volcanic and surging. Even in an era of masters on the drums (Sid Catlett, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, and Roy Haynes were his bebop contemporaries in the 1940’s), Roach’s sound was unmistakable in its combination of tone, power, and swing. Roach also set a mean pace off the bandstand. He was one of the first jazz musicians to take an entrepreneurial role in his music, establishing a record label (albeit short-lived) in the early 50’s, and spearheading a famous insurgency among musicians at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival (bassist and fellow renegade Charles Mingus was his partner in both of those efforts). In the early 60’s, he recorded several albums that echoed the defiance fueling the growing civil rights movement, and which set the stage for even more militant music later that decade. As a university professor in the 70’s and later, he helped develop another generation of jazz voices. New initiates can sample Roach’s artistry on YouTube, where several 78 w w w. d ive r s it y mb a ma g a z in e. c o m http://www.diversitymbamagazine.com
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