I never posted on Max Roach's passing, but I thought this Slate piece had a great example of Roach's incredible flexibility and inventiveness, and I had to pass it on:
His first real eye-popper—the track that has drummers shaking their heads even now, 56 years later—was "
Un Poco Loco," recorded in 1951 with pianist Bud Powell....
The song [has] a crazy rhythm
to begin with. But Roach adds a more complex layer that goes against
Powell's rhythm, on a cowbell no less, while pounding a rumbling roll
on the bass drum at a different tempo still. Simply jaw-dropping—and
you can dance to it.
More remarkable, Roach clearly devised this
approach on the spot. [My emphasis.] The album contains three takes of "Un Poco Loco,"
and the drumming is a bit different on each. On the first take, Roach hits the cowbell in a high-energy Latin rhythm that goes with Powell's rhythm; had he stopped there, it would have been impressive enough. On the second take,
he tries a whole other approach, hitting only a couple beats per
measure and altering the beats; it's very diverting. Only on the third
and final take did he pull out the polyrhythmic marvel.
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