Max Roach and Tony Williams

[Guy Berger]

Did Tony ever talk about being influenced by Max? I hear a lot of similarities in their playing.

Guy

[Guest the mommy]

everyone will disagree with me but i always found max roach sort of personality-less and sort of an amalgamation of the trends and sounds of the time-he absorbed what was going on around him. i mean of course he did have a bit of his own light tap-py thing but in general this is how i find him so if tony williams was somehow influenced by him it would probably be williams being influenced by something that influenced roach.

[JSngry]

Similarities? How so?

Personally, I think you gotta look at Alan Dawson as a formative influence, on technique, if not necessarily style. That Boston thing was pretty "self-contained" as far as outside impact goes, but like all great "local scenes" of the era, distictive traits persisted and were passed on, if only subliminally.

For that matter, if you go back beyond Dawson in Boston, you hit up against Roy Haynes, whose technique I also hear in Tony's. Beyond Haynes, I'm sure there's somebody. I just don't know who it would be.

Edited January 27, 2007 by JSngry

[clifford_thornton]

I never really heard the Max-Tony connection myself. Roy Haynes, maybe.

[mrjazzman]

I prefer the pounding, heavy handed, cymbal crashing technique of Tony Williams and Elvin Jones over Max Roach........

[Guy Berger]

Similarities? How so?

A really "tight", controlled style. (In contrast to Elvin and Blakey.) Also, a real precision and attention to the sounds coming out of the drum kit.

I probably haven't paid enough attention to Roy Haynes.

Guy

[Guest the mommy]

i always thought "the stroker" sounded like he was influenced by roy haynes also.

i wonder if he was from boston.

[JSngry]

everyone will disagree with me but i always found max roach sort of personality-less and sort of an amalgamation of the trends and sounds of the time-he absorbed what was going on around him.

I could see your point (although I'd disagree with it) after, say, 1960 or so, maybe even 1956-ish in a very broad way, but dude, Max was the bebop drummer for my money. Klook might be the "grandfather", but Max broke the shit up like no other and was a true innovator. Everything that happened past that, well yeah, "absorption" might be apt to some extent, but what are the options once you innovate? Stay put forever? Fuck that. Destroy & rebuild from scratch? Yeah, but that's a risky gambit that fails far more often than not. What's left? Absotion, expansion, and growth? Hey, sounds like a plan to me.

Now, as a bandleader, I'll agree that Max didn't really diversify too much (if any) after the early 70s. Those records are very dependent on energy instead of diversity to get their message across, and some do so better than others (although, I heard the quartet w/Pope in person in 1979, and it was intense in a way that none of the records by the same group were). But as a drummer, geez, who of his generation (or the demi-generation immediately following) could have played as effectively and as organically as he did w/Shepp, Braxton, & Taylor? Granted, here and there Klook dropped a few hints that he could have, maybe, and in Andrew Cyrille, you've got the exception that proves the rule, but the point is, once you'ver really truly innovated, either you follow through with the implications of the innovaation or else you just rest on them and let others do the work. I think Max definitely did the former, and if that amounts to "absorption", so be it. What he was absorbing was shit that was bouncing directly back from what he created in the first place.

[JSngry]

Similarities? How so?

A really "tight", controlled style. (In contrast to Elvin and Blakey.) Also, a real precision and attention to the sounds coming out of the drum kit.

I probably haven't paid enough attention to Roy Haynes.

Guy

Yeah, if you listen to how Tony tuned his kit, it's much close to Roy than to Max. Plus, Roy had a tendency to cross bar lines that definitely implied the superimposition of tempos/time signatures that Tony got into so deeply.

Too bad we don't have any earlier recordings of Alan Dawson (or do we?). That cat's an unsung hero, I think.

Edited January 27, 2007 by JSngry

[JSngry]

i always thought "the stroker" sounded like he was influenced by roy haynes also.

i wonder if he was from boston.

Nope. Philly.

[Guest the mommy]

art taylor could hold his own also in the "free" arena but that doesn't really change your point.

[JSngry]

art taylor could hold his own also in the "free" arena but that doesn't really change your point.

No, not really. I don't think that Taylor met the music on its own terms nearly as head-on as Max did. I mean, w/Braxton & Cecil both, you can hear moments when it sounds like he's tiring them out!

[Guest the mommy]

true. but i guess that's why i don't like roach. his style was so adaptable to the point where i don't find the "personality" i find with elvin jones, tony williams, roy haynes, billy higgins, etc.

but you could then argue roach extended himself more, tried new things, etc.

i guess that's true.

this is digressing anyway from the thread's intention. sorry.

[jazzbo]

Dawson was a teacher of Tony's I've read. I definitely hear some Dawson in Tony, especially in hihat use. And some Roy. And some Elveen too. But. . .he became his own man. . .almost before he qualified (as a man!)

[JSngry]

Another thing to remember is that when Tony hit the scene, the climate was such that even if you picked one or two cats as your main source, you couldn't help but pick up on a lot of other things just by osmosis. It's not like you could just cop one cat's style, show up on a gig, do that one thing, and be lauded as a player. You had to bring a little something of your own, and it had to at once blend in and stand out the prevailing climate. The repercussions (no pun intended) of what Max had started (and Roy Haynes, distinct as he was, was coming straight out of Max, or at least walking the same general road) were still very much in the air. So some "influence" even if not direct or conscious (and I don't know one way or the other if it was or not) would be all but unavoidable.

[Chuck Nessa]

I disagree. Max is a "perfect drummer". Klook was an innovator. Max was very intelligent and knew what "not to do" but after the '40s did not move beyond his early gifts.

Max "the musician" is different than Max "the drummer".

My opinion only. YMMV.

[Guest the mommy]

i agree with chuck. chuck layed down what i was thinking but could not elucidate. thanks, chuck.

clemme, i have complained about higgins many a time (when i am feeling sick of blue note hard bop), but i wouldn't use the lloyd dates as fuel for that fire. i mean, the guy was old and sort of ill...the music was a nice boring sanitized music he was playing with that lloyd group...what do you want him to do? i am sure many can credit him for playing what that group called for and so he did. he plays nice and pretty. the music is nice and pretty. it is just boring dull music. not higgins fault. it was lloyd/eicher and everything else. IMO.

dude-he played the great "let freedom ring" date with like a third of a drum set! and he sounds great!

[Larry Kart]

Based on what I've heard of Alan Dawson -- mostly the stuff he made with Booker Ervin, Jaki Byard, and Richard Davis -- I'd say that he was Tony's main inspiration; I don't hear much of anyone else in him. On the other hand, the earliest Tony on record seems to me quite daring and different -- beyond anything that Dawson, to my knowledge, ever attempted or even would have wanted to attempt. A different sense of the drummer's role is involved; I believe that Tony, when he was able to, thought of himself as (and played as though he were) a co-composer. This was over and above (or at least ran alongside) all of his dazzling tricks.

About Max, I believe that what was special about his drumming kind of came to an end with Clifford's death. After his playing on the "Live at the Beehive" set, I'm not aware of anything on record from him -- as a drummer per se, not as a band leader -- that approaches that peak. For one thing, the sound of his kit (ride cymbal especially) become a bit dour -- almost self-consciously so at times, as though he were in mourning.

[Guest the mommy]

i'll also take blackwell in that situation.

[Larry Kart]

m-- i wasn't bustin' on Higgins career-- he did lots of great stuff (esp. in so-called 'hard bop,'; i'll take Blackwell every time for Ornette) i agree, just the notion that he in some way had more total 'personality' (a nebulous concept neither of us defined) so i hit the easy target there.

chuck-- i'll follow my own suggestion & go back, listen w/that idea in mind, but i've felt Max was thee advance on Klook (& Jo Jones, & maybe Dave Tough.) we don't know bc Kenny split but for Max to not just "fit" with but push disparate giants... that's seems the mark of both musician and drummer. (not that i wanna diminish kc, tho' the dude still owes me nekkid pix of (peak-era pulchritude) Carmen McRae.)

signed,

gentleman clementine

I can't imagine wanting to see nekkid pix of Carmen McRae of any era, unless you're into the M side of

S/M.

[mikeweil]

..... but i guess that's why i don't like roach. his style was so adaptable to the point where i don't find the "personality" i find with elvin jones, tony williams, roy haynes, billy higgins, etc. .....

Well, Roach is harder to distinguish from others when accompanying, maybe, but his solo style is easily recognizable. Keep in mind that he's a predecessor of all the others mentioned! The looseness they all have was only possible after he paved the way. His breaks on some Bird sides in the 1940's really opened it up. They were freer in style than anything played before.

Klook and Max were the bridge from swing drumming to more advanced styles.

Edited January 28, 2007 by mikeweil

[JSngry]

Sorry, but unless there's evidence I've not yet heard, I think Max in the 40s was significantly more than just an "intellegent" follow-through on Klook.

Edited January 28, 2007 by JSngry

[ghost of miles]

His breaks on some Bird sides in the 1940's really opened it up. They were freer in style than anything played before.

Like his break on "KoKo"--which Metronome ripped as “a horrible, utterly beatless drum solo by Max Roach.”

[felser]

m-- i wasn't bustin' on Higgins career-- he did lots of great stuff (esp. in so-called 'hard bop,'; i'll take Blackwell every time for Ornette) i agree, just the notion that he in some way had more total 'personality' (a nebulous concept neither of us defined) so i hit the easy target there.

chuck-- i'll follow my own suggestion & go back, listen w/that idea in mind, but i've felt Max was thee advance on Klook (& Jo Jones, & maybe Dave Tough.) we don't know bc Kenny split but for Max to not just "fit" with but push disparate giants... that's seems the mark of both musician and drummer. (not that i wanna diminish kc, tho' the dude still owes me nekkid pix of (peak-era pulchritude) Carmen McRae.)

signed,

gentleman clementine

I know there's an option on the board to edit out someone's postings altogether. I wouldn't want to do that with Clem, as he makes some fascinating points, but I sure wish there was an option to edit out his ever more frequent gratuitous crudeness.

[felser]

I am knocked out by Roach's drumming on the first side of 'Members. Don't Get Weary', especially on "Effi", and that doesn't sound anything like his 40's/50's playing. When I have someone who wants to learn about jazz, I play them that version of "Effi" and tell them to concentrate on the drums and listen to how everything else plays off if them. As for Williams, I hear different things in him than from any previous drummers, in how he uses the cymbals so much in establishing the rhythm. And to me, that is quite the opposite of Roy "Snap, Crackle" Haynes. And boy, was Haynes the wrong drummer for Trane's '63 Newport "My Favorite Things", which could have been THE Coltrane Quartet recording if Elvin had been together an on the gig.

Edited January 28, 2007 by felser