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This week Kate Molleson explores the life and work of a musical giant: drummer and composer Max Roach – in the company of writer and broadcaster Kevin LeGendre. They’ll be focusing on Roach as a percussionist and performer, prioritising his own compositions but also appreciating the art of improvisation as a kind of spontaneous composition.

Max Roach was born in North Carolina in 1924 and grew up in Brooklyn. He was at the vanguard of bebop, alongside Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. They transformed jazz in the mid-20th century and Max Roach never stopped transforming the music, himself and his society. He was a force of political activism in the 1960s, using music as a powerful platform through the civil rights movement. He kept innovating in academia in the 70s and all the way to the early years of the 21st century. A long and innovative musical life.

Today Kate Molleson and Kevin LeGendre explore Max Roach’s early years as a band-leader – and his sadly short-lived collaboration with the trumpeter Clifford Brown.

Music featured:
Cherokee (from Jazz at Massey Hall)
Cou Manchi-Cou (from Max Roach Quartet, featuring Hank Mobley)
Maximum (from In the Beginning)
Sfax (from Max Roach Quartet, featuring Hank Mobley)
St Thomas (from Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus)
Drum Conversation (from At Last! Miles Davis and the Lighthouse All-Stars)
Daahoud (from Clifford Brown and Max Roach)
Sandu (from Study in Brown)
Take the A Train (from Study in Brown)
Deeds Not Words (from Deeds Not Words)