NEC Jazz Department: The Music of Max Roach

The NEC Jazz Department celebrates the music of Max Roach, an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history.  Tonight's concert, performed by Nasheet Waits and NEC students, is a reimagining of Max Roach's iconic We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite
 

About tonight's concert

Nasheet Waits: Reimagining Max Roach’s We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite

“We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we’re master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is
employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we’ve been through.”
- Max Roach (DownBeat magazine)

Renowned drummer and NEC Faculty Member Nasheet Waits considers it an honor to reimagine Max Roach’s iconic We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite, to celebrate
Roach’s 100th birthday in January, 2024. When Waits began his music career following college, drummer/composer Max Roach (1924-2007) served as a mentor for him, inviting him to play in his percussion ensemble M’Boom. Nasheet’s father, Freddie Waits, was a founding member of M’Boom, along with Max Roach, Roy Brooks, Joe Chambers, Omar Clay, Ray Mantilla, and Warren Smith. Roach composed We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite in 1959-60, collaborating with the lyricist Oscar Brown. At this point in his career Roach’s reputation as one of the greatest drummers in history was firmly established. He had performed and recorded with legends such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown, and he could have easily rested on his laurels and simply kept playing the same tunes in the same style for audiences, assuming an apolitical, non-confrontational, assimilationist stance. Yet this was not Max Roach. Max Roach was a passionate supporter of Civil Rights in the U.S. and the independence of African nations, and he thoroughly condemned Apartheid in South Africa. Vocalist Abbey Lincoln, (who later became his wife), was beside him in these beliefs, so when the NAACP commissioned him to write a piece for the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation he accepted, and in 1959 he began composing a work about Black American history that would feature
words by Oscar Brown.
     Roach lived in New York City and Brown lived in Chicago, which meant that their conversations occurred over the telephone. Roach felt an overwhelming sense of urgency to complete the project and to release it to the world in the wake of the anti-segregation Greensboro, NC lunch counter sit-ins in February through July 1960, and the March 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa, which was fueled by overt and institutionalized racism. Max wrote his composition with bold strokes, and Oscar Brown’s pointed lyrics leave no room for misinterpretation. Brown’s lyrics depict themes such as Southern slavery and the history of the drum from Africa to America. Roach’s We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite was recorded and released by Candid Records in 1960, and the album cover featured a picture of three Black men sitting at a lunch counter with a White waiter in the background, (in the spirit of the NC sit-ins). Roach’s message, like the album’s title, was assertive and undeniable. The album featured Roach on drums, vocalist Abbey Lincoln, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Walter Benton, trumpeter Booker Little, trombonist Julian Priester, bassist James Schenk, and Babatunde Olatunji, Ray Mantilla, and Tomas du Vall on percussion. Although critics were divided upon its release in 1960, We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite is now considered to be a masterpiece.
     The performance you will hear tonight by NEC students was curated by Waits, who chose to feature the five original movements of the Suite: “Driva’ Man,” “Freedom Day,” “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace,” “All Africa,” and “Tears for Johannesburg,” as well as the addition of “Garvey’s Ghost,” (in memory of Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey), which was included on Roach’s 1961 album Percussion Bitter Sweet. Roach’s highly nuanced music ranges from a work-song in 5/4 time to uptempo improvised solos, from blues to spiritual, from wordless vocalise to musical depictions of struggle and oppression, and from African bell patterns and hand drumming to a lament in 5/4 time. The music symbolizes a people's struggle and their unyielding dedication to a righteous cause. The sense of community embedded within this music is both palpable and profound.
     Waits first performed his reimagined version of We Insist! - Freedom Now! Suite on January 26, 2024 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where he was joined by vocalist Cassandra Wilson, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, and bassist Eric Revis, as well as by poets Sonia Sanchez and Saul Williams, and video artist Alyson Shotz. In preparing for the premiere, Waits visited the Library of Congress to study Max Roach’s original manuscripts and writings. In planning his Residency at NEC, Waits realized the power in recontextualizing Max Roach’s music and Oscar Brown’s lyrics for today’s audience. Waits described how the oppressed people of today include “...those living from paycheck to paycheck, which is akin to indentured servitude...we need to be conscious of elements of poverty around us.” Waits believes that we as human beings need to stop thinking solely in terms of division, but instead we need to find common ground. He calls this mission “a call to consciousness,” which also includes an imperative to lift each other up and communicate more skillfully (in life
and in musical performances), as well as fostering a deeper consciousness of our planet and a greater awareness of our pressing need to protect the environment. These things simply can’t wait; they are urgent matters. The time to act is now - We Insist!
- Notes by Mark Tipton, DMA Candidate, Jazz Trumpet