Max Roach

• 180 gram VINYL –AUDIOPHILE PRESSING

• The Complete Album + 1 Bonus Track

• 5 STARS DOWN BEAT MAGAZIN

In addition to being one of the best jazz drummers of all time, Max Roach was a longtime civil rights activist. The cover art for the 1961 LP, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, shows a photo of three black men at alunch counter with a white man in a soda jerk's uniform attending them.

It was an incendiary image directed at a still-segregated country. But the album doesn't stop at its cover. The music is superb, and includes an array of jazz stars, including singer Abbey Lincoln, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Walter Benton, trumpeter Booker Little, trombonist Julian Priester, and conguero Michael Babatunde Olatunji.

This was (and still is) both a brilliant piece of music, and a political and social statement, which received a crown in the Penguin Guide to Jazz and a 5-star rating in Down Beat.

PERSONNEL:

• Max Roach - (drums & leader)
• Booker Little - (trumpet)
• Julian Priester - (trombone)
• Walter Benton - (tenor sax)
• Coleman Hawkins - (tenor sax)
• James Schenck - (bass)
• Michael Olatunji - (congas)
• Ray Mantilla _ (percussion)
• Tomás Duvall - (percussion)
• Abbey Lincoln - (vocals)

New York, August 31 & September 6, 1960.

• (*) BONUS TRACK (B3):
• Kenny Dorham, Benny Bailey (tp), Julian Priester (tb), Walter Benton (ts), Cecil Payne (bar), Peck Morrison (b), Max Roach (d).
• New York, November 1, 1960.

TRACKS:

• SIDE A:
• A1 DRIVA’ MAN
• A2 FREEDOM DAY
• A3 TRIPTYCH: PRAYER/ PROTEST/ PEACE

• SIDE B:
• B1 ALL AFRICA
• B2 TEARS FOR JOHANNESBURG
• B3 OH YEAH, OH YEAH