Faith in Rhythm
“Somewhere I hear a revival/somewhere I hear BOP playing/It is playing in the hip-hop walks/of young boys who hit strange notes with hands on triggers/Bam, Bam, Bam MAX MIX UP the BEAT!”—Umar Bin Hassan, “AM”
***
Perhaps the word that most captures the significance of Max Roach is faith. Yes the faith, in those early days, that he would always keep time as the winded lyricists and at least one fickle Monk, dared the time/space continuum to challenge their intellects—one more time. But there was also Max Roach’s faith; Faith that the rhythm would deliver the genius of a generation of “old southern men, full of northern pain”—that the rhythm would always deliver music that we could dream to and finally that the rhythm would deliver even a grain of freedom—“We Insist!”—for those whose only possessions were their bodies and the rhythms contained within those bodies.
***
I saw Max Roach just once—he was quietly sitting, with a lovely, younger woman sitting next to him before a performance of the Alvin Ailey Dance troupe. Emboldened as I was by those heady days in the early 1990s—the Book of Tate still clearing space in my brain—I simply walked up to him and introduced myself. Mr. Roach was cordial—he was very enamored with that woman sitting by his side—and I not so gracefully walked backed to my seat, ebulliently saying to my new bride “that was Max Roach!”
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