By WICKHAM BOYLE
The headline and subhead said: “LEGENDARY JAZZ DRUMMER, MAX ROACH, TO BE REMEMBEREDAT RIVERSIDE CHURCH, August 24, 2007. Bill Cosby, Ruby Dee, Maya Angelou, Cassandra Wilson, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and Billy Taylor Among the Notables Paying Homage to Roach”
What the headline didn’t say was this was one of most classy, fun, gifted, energetic, loving men I have ever met. I loved Max Roach; I loved looking at him at rest with his magnificent hands sitting on this lap. I loved to watch those drummer’s paws go into a furry of rhythm and sound that just curled around me and everyone else in the room, whether the music was live or recoded.
I had the deep and abiding pleasure of working with Max Roach when I produced three Sam Shepard plays at La Mama, each receiving a different jazz treatment from the great man. I was pregnant during that summer of 1988, one of the hottest on record, and I recall sitting and sweating in La Mama’s Annex theater enthralled with sound, as my soon-to-be son danced and wriggled inside me to the groove of Max Roach.
Those shows were a huge success. Max won an Obie and joined the board of directors of La Mama. He would later be awarded a MacArthur Genius grant attesting to all he achieved in music, in his fight against racism,and as a great teacher and father.
They said Max Roach was 83, but to me he is immortal.
Poet Sonia Sanchez wrote a Haiku for Max Roach:
Your hands
Shimmering on the
Legs of rain.
