Search - Max Roach :: To the Max

Very, Very good

William R. Nicholas | Mahwah, NJ USA | 02/19/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Don't come to this if you are expecting a revalation about Max Roach. Most of the music on To The Max-recorded in the 1990s-goes back to ideas he first explored on It's Time, 1962. Basically, this is blues with a chior.



Of course, the 1990s were not the 1960s, and the Civil Rights urgancey you got on It's Time does not apply here. But this has no impact on the music. Here, Max has trimmed the music down to a potent minor blues-and is using a smaller band-but this does not diminish it one bit. He adds so much punch and so many dynamics to the basic chord structures here that the music is in some ways more powerful. There are plenty of aural suprises to go around, but overall the music is cleaner, more viceral and more direct.



Later, Max does a wonderful piece with chimes, and this works well on the album, showing Max was always willing to experiment. There is a chorus about the singers father turning into a moose, the meaning of which I really don't understand. But, frankly, when the music is this good, I really don't care.



This may not be a major work by Max Roach, but still stands head and shoulders above 90% of the music out there."