Max Roach est peut-être un peu moins connu dans les héros du drum, mais ça reste un joueur important. C'était un drummeur parfait pour rendre des standards de jazz, il a probablement appris beaucoup en jouant avec Charlie Parker au début de sa carrière vers la fin des années 40.

L'album a vraiment un feel afro-cubain, c'est pas juste du drum garoché à droite et gauche. Très bon groove. Max Roach se permet également un peu de politique, chose plutôt rare dans le jazz, dénoncant le racisme par les paroles de sa chanteuse Abbey Lincoln.

[Impulse!, Août 1961]

(Mini documentaire sur Max Roach et la fusion jazz/afrobeat/musique cubaine)

Sonny Rollins is one of a handful of artists universally regarded as a master of the tenor saxophone. Only John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins (who put the instrument on the map back in the 1920s) outrank Rollins on the totem pole of tenor men, and many fans will offer credible arguments for why Rollins belongs at the very top of any such list. Even contemporary players like Joe Lovano and Branford Marsalis fall well short of the standard set by Hawk, Trane and Sonny--and they would be first to say so.

The phrase "silent weapons for quiet wars" reminds me, oddly, of the battle waged between Rollins and Coltrane for the top tenor spot in the 1950s. Trane, of course, had spent a formative few years working with Miles Davis, who set him up for his epochal run with Thelonious Monk in summer 1957, while Rollins had broken in as part of the Clifford Brown-Max Roach unit. After Brown's death, Rollins hung around to record Max Roach +4, one of the best albums to come from Roach's recorded peak, before launching his own solo career, which caught fire pretty quick. Comparing the albums recorded under their names in the 1950s, the Rollins stuff is vastly superior to Coltrane's; this included masterpieces like Way Out West and Saxophone Colossus. It wasn't until Coltrane began his run with Atlantic Records (documented on the appropriately-titled box set The Heavyweight Champion) that he achieved true creative parity; by the time he died in 1967, his legacy as the greatest tenor player of all time was secure.

Rollins' career is now in its sixth decade, giving him unprecedented longevity to match a tone that reveals itself as his from the first note. His post-9/11 live album Without a Song introduced Rollins' music to a new generation of fans, many of whom could be forgiven for thinking he is no longer among us. Thankfully, he still is, and shows no signs of slowing down as he marches toward 80. While we wait for a new album from him, we can slake our thirst for his music by reviewing some of his older, classic titles.

The Freedom Suite was recorded in March and April, 1958 for the Riverside label. Concord Records, which bought out Riverside some time back, has rereleased the album as part of the fifth series of their "Keepnews Collection". Orrin Keepnews produced the album and helped run the label; he returns to oversee remastering an provide some "inside baseball"-type anecdotes for the liner notes. As such, the series could be viewed as analogous to Blue Note's "RVG (for Rudy Van Gelder) Collection". This record, like Saxophone Colossus, was recorded as a trio, with bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Max Roach, who is inexplicably labeled on the back of the CD as the trumpeter for a session with no trumpet. These two make for one of Rollins' most sympathetic rhythm sections, and listening to them makes one appreciate the excellent job Rollins has done in picking sidemen and collaborators over the past half-century.

Assuming that the CD sequencing (bonus tracks aside) matches that of the original record, then "Freedom Suite" took up side one, running nearly 20 minutes, while "Someday I'll Find You", "Will You Still Be Mine?", "Till There Was You" and "Shadow Waltz" take up side two. While the whole record makes for credible hard-bop, it is the title track that deserves the listener's focus. Rollins was one of the first to really exploit the freedoms afforded by LP technology to play at extended lengths--the sort of thing now synonymous with Coltrane. "Freedom Suite" arrived shortly after the sublime "Blue 7", and nearly a decade before his East Broadway Rundown record with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

The hero of this album is Pettiford, who would be dead within two years. Pettiford was one of the top three bass players of his time, alongside Mingus and Paul Chambers, and Freedom Suite offers the best setting for appreciating his work that I've ever encountered. One of the three bonus tracks is a duet take of "There Will Never Be Another You" that he and Roach recorded while waiting for Rollins to arrive. It was my introduction to Pettiford's playing, nearly 15 years ago, when it appeared as a bonus track on Roach's Deeds Not Words album, and it still sounds fresh today. The poignancy of the title, when one considers that it was one of his last sessions, makes it the definitive Pettiford, and a key part of Roach's recorded legacy, as well.

The Freedom Suite marked the beginning of an intensely political period in jazz music. Artists had already begun to follow Art Blakey's lead in converting to Islam, and the civil rights movement offered the first real chance for serious expression of the African-American "situation" since "Strange Fruit" 15 years earlier. By 1960, Roach was releasing his We Insist! Freedom Now Suite for Candid, while Charles Mingus was offering the first substantive challenges to the mostly white-run music industry. This album would be a classic by any name, but its organizational concept raises it up to seminal status.

Harold George Belafonte, Jr. (born March 1, 1927) is an American musician, actor and social activist. One of the most successful Jamaican musicians in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style in the 1950s.

Belafonte is perhaps best known for singing the "Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O". Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for civil rights and humanitarian causes.
Belafonte started his career in music as a club singer in New York, to pay for his acting classes. The first time he appeared in front of an audience he was backed by the Charlie Parker band, which included Charlie Parker himself, Max Roach, and Miles Davis among others. At first he was a pop singer, launching his recording career on the Jubilee label in 1949, but later he developed a keen interest in folk music, learning material through the Library of Congress' American folk songs archives. With guitarist and friend Millard Thomas, Belafonte soon made his debut at the legendary jazz club The Village Vanguard.

View the bio and more videos at Drummerworld

Okay, here we go -- note for everyone unfamiliar with EMP: there are currently four panels presented at any one time, so by default I can only attend a quarter of the entire whole. If I miss something that sounds up your alley, sorry! The full day's schedule can be reviewed here.

These notes are VERY rough and I am skipping over tons of things. If any of the paper's authors notice this and want me to clarify/touch up, please let me know!

---

David Novak, “Experiments with World Music, Vol. 2: The Sublime Frequencies of Cultural Difference” -- discussing world music as collision of cultural appropriation -- not the Folkways style but the Sublime Frequencies model and ambivalence in its approach, sieves from cultural detritus. What happens when we hear the music this way? "drawing from unknown sources" SF represents an experimental approach to curating and presenting. Part of the legacy of ethnomusicology but breaks from it in compiling rather than recording, willfully confusing blends -- "curious listeners" will be left in the dark still, with ironic touches. The effect is to represent in a media mix -- evanescent media. Not a Lomaxian loss but the cylical media loss. Sun City Girls history is discussed including presentation and packaging and the breakdown of barriers, but SF is a "blind encounter" rather than a documentation. Individual transcendence needs to avoid "respect" and simple recreation. Compensation is not a factor and is a controversy. Fan discussion covers this and the idea of reacting against slickness but also a bit concerned with the mix disc approach. Approach is an ongoing thing but is not simply gonzo, reflecting what is out there such as Phnom Penh remixes (a bit like dub?) Media is not passively created but resistance to interpretation is important -- consider the loss of copyright vs the advantage of distance and piracy as aesthetic with interference.

(The next couple of presentations I caught were...dull. Skipping along!)

Franklin Bruno, “Nobody Who Was Anybody: How to Listen to 'Ballad For Americans.'” -- "this is the sound of Paul Robeson holding back" but the results still have artifice. Notes differences between versions and wants to explore which is the most authentic. "Ballad" is a patriotic cantata as officially described. Exchange between voice and others is broad and a bit goofy but hey -- "nobody who was anybody" built the nation. Ethnicities and professions and more...the device of personification plus Robeson as singer makes for the charge while its stirring approach still comes off too mannered to many (middlebrow?) and too accepting of official history. Still it lies in a selfconciously radical tradition via the preWWII left and the authors (John La Touche and Earl Robinson) came out of that. (WPA Federal Theatre Project discussed.) Family roots and political backgrounds discussed...detailed but too much to say here. More on the radical left and suspicion of FDR and the New Deal, while Sing For Your Supper provided an initial context but the song was auditioned for CBS Radio and became a mid-1940 omnipresent claimed by all smash, even the GOP, but the left critics were askance and the right critics were annoyed. Lots of infighting! Song eventually became a war standard thanks to recontextualization -- Bing Crosby film clip from Star Spangled Rhythm of knockoff song "Old Glory" is a mindblower and very WTF! Further thoughts on meaningof "nobody" and NYC settings while Robeson was not a nobody in the end. To achieve its effects it needs a singularity, a tension not resolved and how could it be?

Jim Mendiola, “Girl in a Coma: Straight Outta Tejas. And England. And All Points In Between” -- entered while speaking showing a video "Clumsy Sky" setting in a Tejano bar, signifiers everywhere classic country into punk/emp/pop thrash, continuity from the Tex Mex past via older border bands. Three bandmembers all VERY badass. Perfect follow-on from the panel, what is identity? Tattoos and hairstyles and more! I am annoyed to have missed this presentation! Album sales up and the description in iTunes was driven by context and name.

Robert Christgau, “Waiting on the World to Change” -- entered in progress, on a tear, TV on the Radio into John Mayer -- drug bust story! Mayer trashings sought via blogs and the like. Continuum via Marc Hogan! Well this is a further tear -- Mayer's publicist contacts and drops so bits are scrounged up that unsurprisingly sound more sane and thoughtful than the song itself. "Light Green" and all! Opening a dialogue went better, mild progressivism in discussion but still it is something. Xgau might be too on balance but hey. Called Hogan on Sunday and he got tongue-tied with the question and with change but does work with discussion against formalism. Political music audience share as a metric. Change as mantra for a generation, but it's something -- have the John Mayer fans as there are more of them.

Lauren Onkey, “'No Carnival in Britain': Black Immigration and the Rise of Rock & Blues in 1950s England” -- re British black and musical experiences in the 1950s. Visible only as such and as the outsiders. Beatles photo with Lord Woodbine, a contextual dissonance via the construction of the UK as white. Idea of not being able to "see" color (used to integrated bands?), but plenty of slurs abounded in the press (Josephine Baker in psych). Labor shortages prompted the immigration...new changes in port towns but left outside of accountings of rock and roll. A way to avoid confronting changes at home? Liverpool made by the slave trade, integrated communities via intermarriage and shipping employment, as well as distinctions in generations. Record exchanges via black GIs and other connections, mixing in clubs. Beatles not really asked about something that "didn't exist" but should have been aware of it. Alan Williams ran a club that the band played at as well as a steel band that Woodbine played in and ran another club, and the two helped get the Beatles going to Hamburg. Still bitterness among the generation who was there, Woodbine's death dismissed. Derry Wilkie went to Hamburg first, a showman who made the Beatles step up some. Chants band noted, contemporaries but not lover by Epstein.

Peter Scholtes, “Hi Yo Silver, Purple Rain: The Color of Minneapolis Rock and Roll, From Integrated Bands to Segregated Clubs” -- rhetorically: "what's so cool about racial integration" among a younger generation is different from the past, where older musicians saw "comfort" in the integration against the problems of the past. Three scenes in Minn: r'nb prePrince postPrince and hiphop. 1st Ave audience versus other audiences -- Purple Rain audience is the early eighties one, the Dirty Mind audience, where race is not an issue in comparison to the clubs now but which can be felt in moments. "HiYo Silver" as first Minn rock and roll single, a mix of influences and backgrounds with Augie Garcia as showman, then "Surfin' Bird" as the pop explosion to bring a scene into being. The Ravens moved but it must have seemed like a closed shop. Only integrated room -- the Bathroom of the Flame. But things started to semigel though dealing with white fright. Black groups kept dealing with stereotypes and fears of too much blackness so integration happened by the desire to play within this limit while black bands played outside the downtown. Prince transcended this by kicking against this and 1st Ave opened it further thanks to the owners and bookers. But hiphop and violence still exist in tension while Slug gets an overwhemingly white audience. But hiphop and skateboarding brought the younger kids together now...

Barry Long, “'We Insist!' Popular Music, the Civil Rights Movement, and King’s 'Urgency of Now'” -- King and civil rights, the urgency of now -- straightforward but good enough. Jazz as motivator -- a dialogue and engaged. Dizzy Gillespie: jazz "the only thing we have to offer the world" But also had an integrationist core and a music of freedom (thus Sonny Rollins). King in Berlin 1964 on jazz as conveying a more complicated existence. Bebop as composite, also dominated by blacks at the time, but seen as a meritocracy. In combination with civil rights, the results were strong, noting Max Roach's work and King's approval. "We Insist" as representative work. Noting the beats and its variations and how they move and transform. Mingus noted, further connections back to King, a bit technical. Softens a bit towards the end, oh well!

Mike McGonigal, “Freedom Highway” -- about the original 1965 Staple Singers vinyl album (NOT the 1991 CD reissue) of the same name. Starts with a twang of guitar and a breakdown of gospel styles in the "golden age." Staples were a hybrid of styles , country blues guitar mixing with the floating vocals. Notes the changes in style over the years but thinks that the early fifties sides capture "gospel in space." Dylan and the Staples are discussed, with the latter covering "The Death of Emmett Till." Notes the use of code in slave culture and the tension of Christian belief, with recorded gospel bringing these elements together. Civil rights in gospel from the start, Mahalia Jackson as supporter of King and part of the myth. Pops Staples as being inspired by an encounter with King to write protest songs -- "Freedom Highway" then played, produced by Billy Sherill! Says Pops was a "cool guy." It is recorded in a rudimentary but clear style and ties it all together. Highlight is "We Shall Overcome" which with the gospel choir finally making it work after all the grime and bad covers. Various freedom songs were takes of gospel traditionals, then more Staples stories. The 1991 reissue is not the same album and while it does make researching an adventure it is indicative of a poor treatment of gospel by the industries.

Jesse Fuchs, “The Record That Eats Itself: Form, Content, and Subversive Recursion” -- locked grooves and endless songs and hidden tracks! Too quick to sum up here, but brilliantly shifting all over the place. Song and object as various combinations, recursive and wonderful. You had to be here!

Debra Rae Cohen & Michael Coyle, “'The Only Band that Matters'?: Citation as Struggle in the Punk Cover Song” -- the Clash covers Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves" and while I still can't care about the band it's a good breakdown of the song's production and interplay of meaning between the versions.

Regina Arnold, “Rock Crowds and Power: The Early Years.” -- 2nd Lollapalooza, Ministry played and the place was destroyed, big mosh pit and Chris Cornell asked "You look like some kind of army...whose army are you going to be?" So what is the gap between crowd rhetoric and reality? The goal here is to look at pre-Woodstock festivals and how they are more fraught with conflict as well as a place catering to an elite. Raced and gendered attendees have their own contexts. Aquarian Family Festival near Stanford is the focus and the archive is slim. Three months before Woodstock, held at SJSU and near another festival, the 2nd Northern California Folk Rock Festival, half a mile away (with Hendrix). Big week for news and San Jose is in its own media world. Lots of snarky press coverage but no mention of an underlying dispute, and lots of oral history that is up in the air. Festival was a near spontaneous response to annoyance with the folk guys and misrepresented band bills. So Hendrix was on the folk bill but the Aquarian festival goes on because the PCP carers were peeved with high handed treatment. Bills were identical but Aquarian was for free -- bread baked, place to sleep. Music had to be continuous, lots of area bands. Hells Angels as security! Lots of ego bruising. Free and paid tensions still plays out while lots of Angels were causing some nasty crime, the fuckers. Yet it was called "peaceful" though the festival was banned for decibels and lovemaking. Black performers were made the other while two black attendees were killed. Women also objectified (all the men remember the naked women there, no women attendees yet found for an interview). Social violence around, festival was not peace and love. Bias in social histories since...

John Street, “Performing Politics: from Rock Against Racism to Live8” -- Rock Against Racism to Live8 was part of a study of nongovernmental political action in the UK -- how are these stories written, how do we give an account? What do musicians contribute, can the movements be explained without music, and if music is important, how do we explain it? Quotations shown to illustrate these questions and tensions -- accounting in different ways. RAR has its background in the Powell 'rivers of blood' speech and the Clapton comment plus Reading fan actions attacking reggae bands. Letters to the music press propose a musical movement against the "poison" culminating in 1978 with 300 gigs and festivals. Live8 grows out of struggling debt relief campaigns with Bono providing the initial spark in music following with Live Aid Trust coming on with the concerts. RAR is written out of musical histories -- various what ifs are discussed, concluding with the Thatcher effect. Live8 gets many critics of Geldof's hijacking and the writing out of African voices. How to assess competing stories?How to frame it? Music matters in what contexts? A list of "music as..." options are discussed, from organizer to source of moral energy, followed by a summary of means of retelling the stories. Final slide notes how RAR gave new bands a chance in a new context yet not without controversy. But there's notes from Live8 attendees showing that passions on issues can and do occur -- infrapolitics in James C Scott's sense.

Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman, “'Lollapalooza Every Day, Every Year': Music, Multiculturalism, and Whiteness in the 1990s” -- Lollapalooza 2008 seems to have a brand name and a middle-class audience to share with the past. Reclaiming an urban space for families with a certain nostalgia yes, but this is a critique of how it was first understood in a 1991 and on context in terms of multiculturalism and giving many white kids a "safe" context for it. Multiculturalism was a then powerful buzzword and there was much marketing at play -- and most of the attendees were targeted by race as well as monetarily. A spectacle for mass consumption and semiotic significance at play (photos and discussion of the Sly cover by Perry and IceT follows -- mocks or reestablishes boundaries, not to mention the audience). Lots of comments about Perry as core figure and leader as such from the press, who in turn marginalizes Ice-T and barely discusses women. 1992 brought the LA riots and a fantasy of the happy metropolis being trashed. Lollapalooza was frequently called a "riot" and its represented self got more elevated and inflated as well as the "big summer throwdown" for a surging audience, a sanctioned and contained example of "power to the people" (thus the handwritten Spin story plus the various crowd stories, a wash of whiteness and masculinity, the tolerant and the tolerated). Crossings are fraught and limited as Ice Cube and Michelle Ceros (?) noted...

Laurel Westrup, “When Subcultures Collide: The New Travellers at Glastonbury 1978-2005” -- Glastonbury has been around for a long while and has survived at balancing out capitalism with counterculture. Julian Cope stuff piles on...anyway this attracts "alternative types" and has so in the sixties the ley lines crowd goes nuts. 1971 and the free 1972 festivals provides town/gown tensions... tuned out here, I was just too tired!

Yesterday morning mother and I went shopping at the Time Warner Center, and I kept pointing upstairs towards the 6th floor.

"Jazz at Lincoln Center is up there," I said. "Do you want to go take a peek?" Three or four times she said "no" so we continued to shop. On the fourth floor I pointed again a few flights up. "It's right up there! Are you sure you don't want to take a peek?" I asked. Wynton Marsalis rules the roost at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I could see that the prospect of meeting him circling in her head.

"Maybe just a little peek."

So we took an escalator up, went through a set of glass doors, and arrived upstairs in the front atrium of the center. There was a small gift shop and the clerk pointed us to the "hall of jazz" an educational exhibit room showcasing off the newly inducted members to the Jazz Hall of Fame. We both got a free book of jazz postcards, and watched a video on the inductees (my favorite is Max Roach).

Before leaving we looked out the atrium window to view Columbus Circle, spoke with a security guard, and recognized faces of famous musicians in their wall of vintage photographs.

Mom got a kick out of it for sure, and so did I.

Alice McLeod Coltrane (August 27, 1937 - January 12, 2007) was a woman of many talents, including but not limited to jazz pianist, harpist, organist, and composer. She was the wife of jazz legend John Coltrane; playing piano in his band from 1965 until his death in 1967. She continued playing with her own groups, moving toward freer and more meditative forms of jazz. Coltrane was a devotee of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba, devoting much of her life as a spiritual leader, changing her name in the late 1970s to Turiyasangitananda. A renewed interest in her music in the 1990s lead to the release of the compilation album Astral Meditations in 1999, as well as a new album Translinear Light in 2004.

Alice Coltrane died of respiratory failure at West Hills hospital and medical center in Los Angeles, California on January 12, 2007.

Michael Brecker (March 29, 1949 - January 13, 2007) was one of the most influential saxophonists since John Coltrane, performing in multiple genres including jazz-fusion and pop with artists such as Frank Zappa, Aerosmith, James Brown, and Chick Corea, leaving behind a legacy that includes a discography of more than 900 albums. His career as a recording artist began in 1969, on the album Score, playing in a band with his brother, trumpeter Randy Brecker. His greatest achievements were his own albums, under his own name and with the Brecker Brothers band, as well as his work with the group Steps Ahead. In the summer of 2005, it was announced that Michael Brecker had myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disorder, which would later progress to leukemia. He continued to work sporadically, completing his last album two weeks before his death.

Michael Brecker died from complications of leukemia at a hospital in New York City on January 13, 2007.

Max Roach (January 10, 1924 - August 16, 2007) was an innovative modern jazz percussionist whose sheer mastery of the drum kit set the stage for bebop and every resulting genre of jazz. He was the last surviving member of the circle of musicians, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gellespie, and Thelonius Monk whose innovations brought about a revolutionary new style to jazz known as bebop, characterized by unpredictable rhythms and complex harmonies which demanded technical virtuosity. Throughout his life, he continued to redefine the role of the drum set, constantly setting new standards for the possibilities of the drums. His career spanned the greater portion of a century and has included work with jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gellespie, as well as his work with Clifford Brown and their innovations which led to hard bop (a powerfully driven sub-genre of bebop).

Max Roach died of undisclosed causes on August 16, 2007.

Josef  'Joe' Erich Zawinul (July 7, 1932 - September 11, 2007) was a jazz keyboardist and composer most famous for his work with Cannonball Adderly and with the jazz fusion group Weather Report. He moved to the United States in 1959, playing with Maynard Ferguson and Dinah Washington until he was hired by Cannonball Adderly in 1961. It was with the Cannonball Adderly Quintet that Zawinul would write Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, one of his most famous compostions. He then composed several charts with Miles Davis before joining up with saxophonist Wayne Shorter to form the jazz fusion group, Weather Report, for which he would compose the chart Birdland. After the breakup of Weather Report, he persued a solo career with his own group, the Zawinul Syndicate, with which he led until shortly before his death.

Josef Zawinul died of Merkel cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer, in Vienna, Austria on September 11, 2007.

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 - December 23, 2007) was a true piano virtuoso who possessed a technique that was elaborate and meticulous, yet modest and graceful. He played with many of the jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and Ella Fitzgerald, earning himself eight grammy awards along the way as well as the respect of the jazz community. Count Basie once said of him, "Oscar Peterson plays the best ivory box I've ever heard." Despite suffering a stroke in 1993, he continued touring and recording after his recovery.

Oscar Peterson died of kidney failure at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada on December 23, 2007.

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THE PLAYERS:

1) ELVIN JONES

Elvin Ray Jones was born September 9, 1927 in Pontiac, Michigan, the youngest of ten children. By age 13, determined to be a drummer, Elvin was practicing eight to ten hours a day. He went nowhere without drum sticks in his pocket, and would beat out rhythms on any available surface. Early influences Elvin likes to cite range from Kenny Clarke, Max Roach and Jo Jones to parade drummers and the American Legion Drum Corps! I

After a brief gig at the Detroit club Grand River Street, he went to work at another club, backing up such jazz greats as Parker, Davis and Wardell Grey.Jones came to New York in 1955 for an unsuccessful audition for the Benny Goodman band but stayed in the city, joining Charlie Mingus' band and making a record called "J is Jazz." In 1960, he became a member of John Coltrane's quartet. Jones, with his rhythmic, innovative style, became one of jazz's most famous drummers under Coltrane. He can be heard on Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and "Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard." After leaving the Coltrane quartet, Jones briefly played with Duke Ellington and formed the Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine. He put out several solo albums and continued to tour, including last month in Oakland, California, Keiko Jones said.

Elvin has been heard on nearly 500 recordings, with no end in sight. He also made a temporary detour to Hollywood in 1971 to appear as the character Job Cain in the ABC Paramount film "Zachariah". Reflecting his deep commitment to the music ("Playing is not something I do at night" he said, "It's my function in life").
MORE INFO:
http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Elvin_Jones.html

THE PASSION OF ELVIN JONES:

2) MAX ROACH:

Max Roach is a renowned American percussionist and composer. He was born in the year of 1925 in New Land, North Carolina, but he began his extensive career at the age of ten when he began playing drums in Brooklyn, New York for gospel music groups. These gospel groups proved to contribute the most significant influence to his musical style. He also studied at the Manhattan School of Music.

At Monroe's Uptown House, a nightclub in Harlem, New York, Max Roach began working with a group of American jazz musicians (including pianist Thelonius Monk and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker) in 1942. These talented musicians were experimenting with a musical style that was to become known as bebop jazz, or bop. At the time, drummer Kenny Clarke was introducing stylistic innovations and was performing with many of the top bebop musicians. These innovations included utilizing the cymbals rather than the bass drum for the primary rhythmic pulse of the music. Roach was the first to fully realize the potential of these innovations and quickly developed his own style to become the leading drummer of the bop movement (early 1940s to mid-1950s). He played and recorded with most of the major jazz musicians of the period, including American tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and American trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. From 1947 to 1949 he was a member of Charlie Parker's historic bebop quintet. From 1954 to 1956 Roach led a jazz quintet with American trumpeter Clifford Brown.

MORE ON MAX ROACH, CLICK HERE:

MAX ROACH: Chillin' With Abbey Lincoln, Lookin Fly!

ART BLAKEY AND THE JAZZ MESSENGERS:

The origins of the Messengers are in a series of groups led or co-led by Blakey and pianist Horace Silver, though the name was not used on the earliest of their recordings. The most celebrated of these early records (credited to "The Art Blakey Quintet"), is A Night at Birdland from February 1954,[citation needed] one of the earliest commercially released "live" jazz records. This featured Silver, Blakey, the young trumpeter Clifford Brown, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson and bassist Curly Russell. The "Jazz Messengers" name was first used on a 1954 recording nominally led by Silver, with Blakey, Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham and Doug Watkins — the same quintet would record The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia the following year, still as a collective. Donald Byrd replaced Dorham, and the group recorded an album called simply The Jazz Messengers for Columbia Records in 1956. Blakey took over the group name when Silver left after the band's first year (taking Mobley, Byrd and Watkins with him to form a new quintet with a variety of drummers), and the band was known as "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers" from then onwards.

Two of the group's most famous lineups featured Wayne Shorter on saxophone. The first was a quintet that existed from 1959 to 1961 and included Blakey, Shorter, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan, and Bobby Timmons. The second (1961–1964) was a sextet that added trombonist Curtis Fuller and replaced Morgan and Timmons with Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton, respectively. Shorter was the musical director of the group, and many of his original compositions such as "Lester Left Town" remained staples of Blakey's repertoire even after Shorter's departure. (Other players over the years made permanent marks on Blakey's repertoire — Timmons, composer of "Dat Dere" and "Moanin'", Benny Golson, composer of "Along Came Betty" and "Are You Real", and, later, Bobby Watson.) Shorter's more experimental inclinations pushed the band at the time into an engagement with the 1960s "New Thing", as it was called: the influence of Coltrane's contemporary records on Impulse! is evident on Free For All (1964), often cited as the greatest document of the Shorter-era Messengers (and certainly one of the most fearsomely powerful examples of hard bop on record).

MORE ON ART BLAKEY CLICK HERE

ART BLAKEY's "Afro-Lick":

Here's a downloadable version of Bop and Beyond's Max Roach Tribute Show. Enjoy my flubs on the microphone!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4GTYDI07