Max Roach

One of the more startling musical performances I ever saw was when Max Roach played a hi-hat solo as the encore to his concert with his quartet in Oakland in the mid-eighties (which was also the only time I ever saw Dizzy Gillespie and Sam Rivers, Dizzy's quintet with Rivers being the second part of that double bill). Max brought his hi-hat down to the front of the stage and played a whole piece of music just with the hi-hat and two drumsticks. I was later told that this was a standard trick of his, but so what? It was brilliant.

And the wondrous tune "A Little Max," on Duke Ellington's Money Jungle (a trio recording with Charles Mingus)—what a player Max was.

Max Roach, 1924-2007