Search - Max Roach :: It's Time

An Overlooked Classic...

9595leo | New York, NY United States | 06/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Max Roach compositions with big band and chorus, with emphasis on the music... I can't say much more, except this is one of my favorite jazz lps... This has to be one of thee greatest of the overlooked jazz classics... It defintely evokes the day in which it was made... 5 stars..."

Brillant work

William R. Nicholas | Mahwah, NJ USA | 08/28/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is easy to underestimate Max Roach, but nearly impossible to overestimate his work. He came out of the bop era, but was on the cutting edge of jazz into the 1990s.



Here, Max takes the Civil Rights themes of "Bitter Sweet" and applies a choir to them, giving his musical and political thrust an almost godly urgnacy. Donald Byrd was also working with choirs at the time with equal effectivenes, but here, the musical and the politcal are impossible to seperate. Choirs were common in music in 1962-Mitch Miller, Bing Crosby-but Roach uses these pretty voices to provoke and discomfort us.



There is a lot going on musically too: blues tinge but with lots of subtitutions and Dolphy-esqe inversions. The fact that Roach could apply a vocal section to this and make it work only shows you how smart his arranging was.



Great artifact and great music in 2008. A must buy

"