We Insist!

When my friend called me a week ago to tell me that Max Roach had died, I yelped in disbelief. When we hung up, I cried for about 15 minutes. I fought valiantly but I couldn’t stop those tears. I knew WKCR would be launching one of their indispensable memorial broadcasts, but honestly I was nervous about turning it on, knowing that the force of Max’s genius (and the emotions his playing always managed to stir up) could overtake me like a tidal wave.

To be honest, I don’t know as much as Max Roach’s discography as I do other jazz artists. Max laid down rhythm for lots of my favorite recordings, from propulsively driving Sonny Rollin’s solos on Freedom Suite to being part of the famous all-star concert that spawned The Quintet - Jazz At Massey Hall recording. His tenure as a co-leader in the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet produced sharp, sophisticated tracks and he lived his whole life embracing innovation. I’ll leave it to far more knowledgeable and talented folks to run down all of Mr. Roach’s accolades.



There’s a funny moment from a WKCR interview from the late 70s that aired during the memorial broadcast. Max is talking to the interviewer about how he find good places to eat when he’s abroad. He simply goes to the places that are packed and have long queues. When he comes back Stateside and goes to the movies using the same method, he finds himself watching Jaws. Poor Max can’t deal and eventually walks out. When you think about his disgust about seeing Jaws, it seems to follow that he must’ve been well into his crotchety-old-man phase. But, this same guy worked with rappers later on in his career, which, to me, points to an artistic openness that judged things on their merits. (And, he could've just hated sharks, too...)

The thing that moves me about the giants of jazz music was that their lives were surrounded by artistic and existential struggle, but their music came out as fiery, dignified, tenacious and resolute. You can hear that willpower on the famous Freedom Now Suite – We Insist! recording, led by Max in 1960.


I have a phrase in my head that I associate with my favorite jazz tunes: “the unending sound of modernity.” To me, the best of this music never sounds old. The feelings that songs like “Jordu,” “Giant Steps” and “Parisian Thoroughfare” generate create their own context in the here and now. Put more simply, they create an electric current that energizes the moment that the listener’s hearing it. That dynamic is why Max Roach will never die. Isn’t it a rule of physics that energy is never destroyed, it just changes form?