We insist! Freedom Now Suite

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We insist! Freedom Now Suite
Studio album by Max Roach

Publication
(s)

1960

Label (s) Candid

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

jazz

running time

36 min 43 s

occupation
  • Bass: James Schenk not on [3]
  • Percussion: Tomas du Vall on [4, 5]

production

Nat Hentoff

Studio (s)

Nola Penthouse Sound Studios New York City

chronology
Parisian Sketches (1960) We insist! Freedom Now Suite Percussion, Bitter Sweet (1961)

We insist! Freedom Now Suite is a political concept album containing a compilation of jazz pieces that drummer Max Roach wrote with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. and recorded with his band and prominent guest musicians. Released in 1960, the album "was born out of a political experience" and took a pointed position in the struggle of the African Americans in the United States against racial discrimination at the time .

History of origin

After sit-in demonstrations by African American students in a restaurant in Greensboro reserved exclusively for whites on February 1, 1960 and then began in other southern cities, even previously rather apolitical jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington , Count Basie and Art Blakey declared public their support.

In 1959 , the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had commissioned the drummer Max Roach and the lyricist Oscar Brown to create an oratorio for the 100th anniversary of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation . However, Roach and Brown fell out at work. "For political reasons," claimed Oscar Brown later because he was then Martin Luther King Jr. was more credible than the favored by Max Roach Malcolm X . One month before the recordings for the “Freedom Now Suite”, Elijah Muhammad , then leader of the Black Muslims , called for the establishment of a separate Black American state in North America in view of the independent states that were forming on the African continent (until today a demand of the black nationalist movement) .

According to Brown's memory, the two had initially planned to write a long work entitled “The Beat” in which “the story of the African drum from Africa to the present day” should be told. Several of these parts were not only designed together, but also developed. Roach played Brown the intended melodies on the melodica as the two got to work. In view of the political worsening events, it was unclear after the rift whether the two would ever work together again. Therefore Roach decided to record and publish the suite in a modified form with a combo before the completion of the entire work. The newly created independent jazz label Candid offered him this; its producer Nat Hentoff even hoped to be able to bring the work to the market in the originally planned form.

Brown only found out about the planned admission through a postcard with which Hentoff asked him for biographical information that he wanted to include in his liner notes. In addition to his sextet, to which his future wife Abbey Lincoln also belonged, Roach gathered other musicians to record the work - on the one hand the swing saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, on the other hand percussionists from African and Caribbean musical cultures, above all Olatunji from Nigeria . Both names - like Abbey Lincoln's - featured prominently on the album cover.

Two recording sessions were held on August 31 (with Coleman Hawkins) and September 6, 1960 (with the percussionists) in Hentoff's penthouse , which has been converted into a studio. The sound engineer was Bob d'Orleans. The release was the young label's second record (after an LP by Otis Spann ).

List of titles

Max Roach (1979)
  1. "Driva Man" (Brown / Roach) - 5:10
  2. "Freedom Day" (Brown / Roach) - 6:02
  3. "Triptych: Prayer / Protest / Peace" (Roach) - 7:58
  4. "All Africa" ​​(Brown / Roach) - 7:57
  5. "Tears for Johannesburg" (Roach) - 9:36

Structure of the album

The album is to be understood as a suite due to the content-wise bracing texts by Oscar Brown. The texts create an arc from the time of slavery to the present. Roach underlayed his compositions with (poly) rhythmic layers, sometimes integrated uneven 5/4 meters , but also complex African patterns into his arrangements. In the first three pieces Roach also refers to musical symbols of Afro-American identity such as the blues and gospel . The 5/4 time popularized shortly before (1959) by the jazz hit “ Take Five ”, with which Roach had already experimented earlier, is used in several pieces ( Driva Man , Tryptich - Peace and Tears for Johannesburg ). The last two pieces are clearly African-influenced due to the use of a percussion ensemble, the rhythmic ostinati and the modal framework .

The opening piece Driva Man is musically a Work Song , based on a blues. Abbey Lincoln began a cappella in C minor and accompanied herself on a tambourine . With her interpretation, Abbey Lincoln denounced rape and gender-specific exploitation of female slaves (who " anticipates the free jazz singing of Patty Waters or Jeanne Lee " with her haunting singing beyond European tonality ). The interaction between her “screams of rage” and Coleman Hawkins, acting as a male counterpart (who made his only recording here in 5/4 time , which was interestingly delayed by the bassist ) points partly beyond the (then) formal language of jazz and is of a moving intensity .

Freedom Day , on the other hand, is a more conventional up-tempo piece of modern jazz . Ultimately, it celebrates liberation from slavery with lively melodic instrumental solos by Booker Little, Walter Benton, Julian Priester and Roach.

Tryptich was originally conceived as a ballet piece and is at the center of the record: the three-part piece is based on the legacy of gospel. Its first part, "Prayer," is a textless spiritual based on a pentatonic scale in E minor . Roach had tuned the drums for this to go well with the sound of Lincoln's voice. Tryptich dispenses with the sextet line-up and was recorded as a duet for vocals and percussion: Lincoln's expressive, committed vocals cover the spectrum from cheerfulness to almost hysteria. In this way, a gripping urgency emerged in the dialogue with Roach's drums. Thereby “there was prayers (prayer), shouting ( protest ) and deep breaths (peace). The blows of the slave driver could not only be heard, you could feel them. ”Particularly in protest , Lincoln uses new and unfamiliar vocal means of expression.

All Africa describes the return to the African heritage - both in Africa and in North America. After Brown's poem about the drum beat is heard, there is a singing exchange between Lincoln, who mentions the names of ethnic groups in Africa, with the Nigerian drummer Olatunji, who, while singing in Yoruba, comments on their attitude to freedom (whereby the winds also take part in the call and response ), and then plays a long common drum passage with Roach and the other percussionists.

Tears for Johannesburg is a lament that Roach dedicated to the victims of the Sharpeville massacre , in which a non-violent demonstration against apartheid passport laws was shot down by police. The piece attacks the racism of the apartheid regime and depicts the topicality of the violent oppression of Africans in South Africa. First, Abbey Lincoln, accompanied by bass, percussion and drums alone, “made a non-verbal vocal performance that was undoubtedly one of the most touching political statements of the era counts ”(according to author and musician Ben Sidran ). The subsequent solos by Booker Little, Walter Benton, Julian Priester and the drummer should make it clear that the will for freedom cannot be suppressed. The expressive solo of trumpeter Booker Little is a highlight of the album after Jazz thing .

Cover photo

The cover of the original Candid record alludes to the sit-in in Greensboro. The large-format photo shows three African Americans in a snack bar , turning to face the camera, while a white barman is cleaning glasses on the other side of the bar.

effect

The concept album was initially not a commercial success, even if it was ultimately one of the most effective political jazz records. It was “one of the first jazz records to take up positions of black nationalism in the political debate with the civil rights movement as aggressively as it was radical .” Don DeMichael, the reviewer of the American Down Beat , did not hesitate in 1961, the album with the highest Rating - five stars - but said: “I don't know if it's still jazz. But that doesn't matter. Because I know that it is great music, powerful music, vital music. Oscar Brown Jr. and Max Roach have created a work (...) which, in condensed form, depicts a story of the escape from oppression in this country. This message is important. "

The record was also praised on the German Jazz Podium ; there, too, the political motives predominated in the review. Joachim-Ernst Berendt considered the suite to be “Max's main work” and emphasized that it “is exemplary” not only in its message, but also as a “composition for small groups in large form”. The album was currently rated 5 stars in the All Music Guide . For the German magazine Jazz thing , the re-released CD in 1998 was “still explosive musical evidence”. Both the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD and the German basic discotheque Jazz count the album as a central part of any collection of jazz albums.

Abbey Lincoln in concert (1966)

For the jazz critic Gudrun Endress , the Freedom Now Suite is a poignant musical “testimony to the freedom struggle of blacks in the USA”, with which Roach wanted to shake up. Ben Sidran hears an "outcry against racism and for recognition of the great contributions of African and African-American culture" in the suite. Stanley Crouch transfigured it in 1996 as the "hymn of the black movement". For Ekkehard Jost , the suite is the “foundation stone for a jazz that understands itself politically”. On the other hand, Werner Burkhardt remarked critically that the suite - and especially the duo piece Tryptich - lacked the “necessary distance” necessary for political intervention; "If you look at the matter right, you feel treated unfairly because your hands are tied due to the ideological commitment of the artists and you can't shout what you want to shout:" More art, less content! ""

When the album was released it was clear that it was music "that gets to the kidneys, screams that have been resented by the performers". Because of this recording, Roach was boycotted by record companies in the 1960s: he had less opportunity to work in the studio for a few years; Abbey Lincoln was also only able to gain a foothold in the international jazz business in the 1990s. The play Tears for Johannesburg had also meant that the record fell under censorship in South Africa and was not allowed to be distributed there. Roach then offered fund raising organizations to borrow a free copy of the record.

The Rolling Stone chose the album in 2013 in his list the 100 best jazz albums ranked 17th

Public performances

On January 15, 1961, the suite premiered live as part of a benefit concert for civil rights organization CORE that was held at New York's Village Gate jazz club and cost $ 2.50 admission. In this performance, different musicians were involved than in the recording: Eric Dolphy in particular should be mentioned here, but also Marcus Belgrave and, as bassist, Larry Ridley ; a total of four conga players were now involved, as well as a narrator and several dancers (including Maya Angelou ). “The interaction between music and dance,” said reviewer Dan Morgenstern , “was perhaps not as organic as it would have been in the Savoy Ballroom , but strong enough to show the ongoing relationships between the two genres.” At least one further performance took place in April 1961 at the Jazz Gallery New York; Parts of the work were performed in Philadelphia at the 25th annual meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where it found an "enthusiastic audience." A tour through the southern states planned by the NAACP could not be realized.

Abbey Lincoln remembers that the duo piece Tryptich was performed for a while without the entire suite, for example one night at Birdland - beyond its regular program: “ Erroll Garner was in the audience. It was later said that he hadn't listened and when I started screaming he said to someone, 'What's the matter with her?' "

In early 1964, Roach and Lincoln went on a European tour with the suite, where recordings were made by radio stations and television (in Baden-Baden ); There were now Clifford Jordan (ts), Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (p) and Eddie Khan (b). In Denmark (or any other country), according to Abbey Lincoln's memoirs, the play was heavily rejected. There, after the Roach performance, “one of these large magazines with two whips in hand instead of drum sticks or brooms ” was shown on the front page . The suite was also performed in a benefit concert for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1965 . We insist! Freedom Now Suite became a theme for choreographers, filmmakers, and off-Broadway plays in the years that followed.

Meaning for Max Roach

For Roach himself, the album was a turning point that expanded his sphere of influence as a composer. In a “Down Beat” interview in 1961 after the album was released, he said: “I will never again play something that has no social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proven beyond any doubt that as musicians we are masters on our instruments. Now we have to use our abilities to tell the dramatic history of our people and what we went through. ”He stood by that statement later.

literature

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ so Max Roach 1996 in conversation with Peter Rüedi and Franz Biffiger . M. Roach Just Play These Goddamn Drums . In: du. Die Zeitschrift der Kultur , 12/1996, pp. 32–48, here p. 42
  2. ↑ See Christian Broecking : Respect . Verbrecher, Berlin 2004. Excerpt also in the liner notes for the CD that was published at the same time ( Memento from April 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Ingrid Monson : Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2007, p. 173 f.
  4. ↑ a b Max Roach. In: Gudrun Endress Jazz Podium. Musicians about themselves . DVA, Stuttgart 1980, pp. 106-113
  5. ↑ Hentoff, Linernotes on We Insist! Freedom Now Suite
  6. ^ Monson Freedom Sounds , p. 174
  7. ↑ It had the sales number Candid CJM 8002 (Mono) or CJS 9002; in Germany it was also launched on the market as a Philips / twen record. The CD version has been marketed as CCD 79002 since 1988.
  8. ↑ a b Ralf Dombrowski: Basis-Diskothek Jazz . Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, p. 180f.
  9. ↑ According to the musicologist Ingrid Monson in her analysis, cf. Monson Freedom Sounds , pp. 178f.
  10. ↑ after Monson Freedom Sounds , p. 176
  11. ^ Philippe Carles , Jean-Louis Comolli : Free Jazz - Black Power . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 206
  12. ↑ after Monson Freedom Sounds , pp. 177f.
  13. ↑ Marcus Wölfle: Jazz women . In: Jazzzeitung , 11/2005, p. 3
  14. ↑ In retrospect, Lincoln says in an interview with Gudrun Endres: "It makes a lot of sense to scream, to shout, to imitate noises with the human voice, I discovered that for the first time in the music of the» Freedom Now Suite «." Also later she “incorporated into my singing these possibilities that I used in› Triptych - Prayer, protest, peace ‹of the“ Freedom Now Suite ”.” G. Endress Social concerns in music: Abbey Lincoln . In: Jazz Podium , 12/1982, pp. 4–7, here p. 5
  15. ↑ a b Ben Sidran Freedom Now. Alternative take. du. Die Zeitschrift der Kultur 12/1996, pp. 71–73
  16. ↑ after Monson Freedom Songs , pp. 179f. and the liner notes
  17. ↑ a b G. Filtgen: Jazz thing , 9/98
  18. ↑ cover illustration ; Interpretation by N. Reynolds. BBC
  19. ↑ See S. Yanow Jazz on Record . Backbeat Books, San Francisco 2003, ISBN 0-87930-755-2 , pp. 444f.
  20. ↑ Tobias Rapp : Max Roach is dead. The liberator of the drums . In: taz , August 17, 2007
  21. ^ Rainer Blome: Max Roach - "Freedom Now Suite" (Candid / Philips Twen) . In: Jazz Podium , 11 (2) (1962), p. 54
  22. ^ JE Berendt: The Jazz Book . Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 423
  23. ↑ Review of the album .
  24. ↑ a b c The bittersweet years. The singer Abbey Lincoln in conversation with Stanley Croach . In: du. Die Zeitschrift der Kultur , 12/1996, pp. 57–60
  25. ^ Ekkehard Jost: Social history of jazz in the USA . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main, p. 279
  26. ↑ Werner Burkhardt: Jazz on the threshold of ideology. In: Die Welt , January 14, 1964, reprinted in W. Burkhardt: Klänge, Zeiten, Musikanten. Half a century of jazz, blues and rock . Oreos Verlag, Waakirchen 2002, ISBN 3-923657-70-6 , pp. 146-149
  27. ^ Obituary for Roach. In Jazzzeitung , 1/2008 and Max Roach biography ( memento from February 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) from allaboutjazz.com
  28. ^ No "Freedom Now" in South Africa . In: Down Beat , June 21, 1962, p. 11
  29. ^ N. Monson: Freedom Sounds , p. 175. These organizations organized benefit concerts.
  30. ↑ The 100 best jazz albums . Rolling stone; accessed on November 16, 2016.
  31. ^ Information from the event's advertising poster, printed in Monson Freedom Sounds , p. 153
  32. ↑ Coleman Hawkins and Schenck did not take part in this performance. See Monson: Freedom Sounds , p. 172
  33. ↑ D. Morgenstern: Freedom Now . In: Metronome , 78 (March 1961), cit. n. Monson Freedom Songs , p. 172
  34. ^ Monson: Freedom Sounds , p. 173
  35. ↑ Roach said on the occasion of a performance in Bremen: "We have never played the work in America on a concert tour." n. W. Burkhardt: Jazz on the threshold to ideology , p. 149
  36. ^ After Monson Freedom Sounds , p. 363
  37. ^ "I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we're master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through. " - according to the New York Times of August 16, 2007
  38. ↑ Max Roach Interview 1979 ( Memento from July 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 20, 2008 .