"There Will Never Be Another You": Max Roach Memorialized by Friends and Followers
Friday, mourners convened at Harlem's Riverside Church (steeple pictured at left) to send off premier jazz drummer and innovator Max Roach, who took his rest the morning of August 16th after a battle with Alzheimer's. It was a who's who of Black achievement, struggle and creativity past. Icons hunched and wrinkled, who all knew each other very, very well, memorialized Roach, the activist and the artist, often in that order, and anyone who knows his singularity musically will understand what a tribute that emphasis was, what a testimony that emphasis gave to his character.
Watch/Listen to excerpts from the memorial at Democracy Now!
Jazz luminaries were in attendance and many tributed Roach in song including the imposing pianist Randy Weston, my favorite saxophonist Gary Bartz and his shock of white curly hair, a tardy Cassandra Wilson whose rendition of "Lonseome Lover" seemed to especially touch the family, a bespectacled and as always toupéed Dr. Billy Taylor on piano joined by Jimmy Heath who let his feelings for Roach be known by riffing on "There Will Never Be Another You," and the house trio of Billy Harper, Reggie Workman, and Cecil Bridgewater. It felt a lot like love: the loss. It might be that music better resolves what words struggle to reconcile excepting those spoke by the tributing geniuses in attendance. Amiri Baraka sent Roach off spectacularly by performing a poem originally written for the drummer's 75th birthday. He noted that Roach had been a hero of his since he was 14 and called him "a lyrical songvoice of the drum." By poem's end, Baraka had the audience on its feet clamoring in accord with his poetic portrait of Roach. Maya Angelou, unwell but moving in her reflections of a life friendship with Roach, compared him to a fallen great tree and sang "a song of praise" for Roach as an exempary Black man despite the challenges he faced having been born in, to paraphrase disc jockey and Roach family friend Phil Schaap, the best year the Ku Klux Klan ever had. Bill Cosby, who sat rapt by the musicianship (he gave every performer a standing ovation), in the front row cut a dashing figure in suit and for most of the memorial sans sunglasses. It was a reminder of what he was before the Birkenstocks, the sweats and the old man orneriness, not that it much bothers me; I'm okay with 70-year-old Bill talking crazy on occasion. He addressed the family and fans assembled by recounting in his classic comedic style how Roach's dexterity turned him away from a teenage flirtation with jazz drumming. Peppered with references to pop culture in his and many of the older mourners' youth, he was a particularly pointed hit but he made me smile too. (Look to the NYT for a detailed summary of Cosby's story). Fellow Philadelphian Sonia Sanchez was for me the most moving as she was during Ossie Davis' homegoing a few years back. In a multicolored jacket and tie-dyed bedazzled headscarf, she flouted funereal attire and drew tears from all, herself included. She contributed 3 haikus to the program and captured Roach's virtue, "and your hands kept reaching for God" and our appreciation, "We heard the prayer in your hands."
My day job called so I missed Calvin Butts' eulogy but being that he was remarakably ineloquent in that capacity for Davis, I can't imagine I missed much. But I'm glad for what I got: to have seen for myself, to have heard for myself, some history to better gather some context for my own life in art in and activism. Many things were impressed upon me, the greatest of these came from Gary Bartz, who highlighted a Roach trait echoed by many other speakers: that was he was an ever prepared musician committed to improvisational creativity. Bartz recalled being a young sideman and daring to bring some sheet music on the stand only to be admonished by Roach, "No music on the bandstand." I'm ashamed to say it first struck as Suga Freeesque in an "if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready" kind of way. Now if even cultured I, get my mottos from pimpin', all is not well in the world. But it's nice to connect the ethic (perverted in the Suga Free context) into something more perfect. "No music on the bandstand" is a challenge for the tineared and the ones with perfect pitch, it's a directive for distinction and an approbate for going one's own way. That's how the legend, Black boy born in North Carolina, bred in Bedford-Stuyvesant, emerged from under the wings of Bird, was made.
Ashé.
PS-Fab Five Freddy a/k/a Freddy Braithwaite, Jr. was a pallbearer.
And for a good recap of the funeral see this Bloomberg piece.
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