music clip of the day

Happy Birthday, Max!

No drummer is more clear, more precise, more melodic.

Max Roach, January 10, 1924-August 16, 2007

“The Third Eye,” live

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“The Drum Also Waltzes” (Drums Unlimited), 1966

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With Sonny Rollins (saxophone), “St. Thomas” (Saxophone Colossus), 1956

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With Clifford Brown (trumpet), “Sweet Clifford” (Brown and Roach Incorporated), 1955

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With Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Charlie Parker (saxophone), Bud Powell (piano), Charles Mingus (bass), “Salt Peanuts,” live, 1953

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

In this music, you have to find out who you are, what you feel, what you want to say. That’s one of the reasons that it’s so American. You have to be yourself.

That’s also one way jazz is different from classical music. In classical music, you learn to study and come up with the finest interpretation of a work that you can. That’s a different way of expressing your personality. You have to learn to use what’s written already to express yourself. In jazz, you have to learn to be who you are, and create the music from that.

—Max Roach (in Gene Santoro, Highway 61 Revisited [2004])

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radio

Today it’s all Max all day at WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University).