And neither will the Jazz Con Class listeners, they will not get weary. Great album and a great example of how Jazz had evolved in the mid-60’s. Although Max Roach was always experimenting, he never really moved away from his hard bop roots. This album can be categorized under Avant-Garde and was at the time but later more as, post bop, a term that was created afterwards, learn more here. Nevertheless, the power that he unleashes with the drums is so ever present here and only allows him to lead the improvising assault, tune in! The official name of the this album is “Members, Don’t Git Weary” and will be featured for a couple of weeks, check for play times on the schedule link.
About the Album:
Although Max Roach was very much a product of the be-bop revolution of the 1940s, he proved to be quite receptive to modal post-bop and avant-garde jazz in the 1960s. 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…….Read More
Biography of 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. Through such albums as Study in Brown (1955) and At Basin Street (1956), the Brown/Roach Quintet came to exemplify the aggressive style of jazz known as hard bop……Learn More
