Entering a second floor room of the Library of Congress’ Jefferson Building on January 27 I encountered scores of folks huddled around two long tables festooned with vivid memories from the life of one of the giants of this music we call jazz. Spotting Howard Dodson, curator of Howard University’s historic Spingarn Collection, eyes glued intently to one particular artifact, he informed me that he was reading a fascinating, deeply passionate handwritten letter from Maya Angelou to Max Roach in the sad aftermath of Malcolm X’s assassination. Adjacent to that letter was a vivid photo of Max picketing Carnegie Hall on behalf of the “Africa for Africans” cause that had famously disrupted a Miles Davis concert appearance. Nearby was a biting, handwritten letter from Charles Mingus bitterly admonishing Max over some perceived slight relative to their stormy Debut Records partnership, with the telling salutation “Hate” above Mingus’ signature. Elsewhere on display among the samples was one of Roach’s grade school report cards, with a ‘D’ mark by his music class. Other artifacts attested to a life very politically led, often on the cutting edge of various movements for African American justice in this country.

The legacy of NEA Jazz Master Max Roach goes way deeper than his stature as one of the signature drummers in American music history. That fact was driven home by a wonderful event last Monday at the Library of Congress, which introduced its acquisition of the Max Roach Collection. In the company of Max’s five children, LOC Senior Music Specialist and jazz curator Larry Appelbaum – one of my WPFW radio colleagues – interviewed the family and we were treated to their warm recollections of growing up with the great drummer, though as this collection clearly reveals, limiting him to his peerless drum and music legacy is selling him way short, Max Roach was a renaissance man of the first order.

Prior to eliciting his children’s recollections of Max Roach the father, Appelbaum screened several rare video clips, including one of Roach telling a Library of Congress audience his vivid remembrance of first climbing onto Sonny Greer‘s prodigious drumset at age 17 to play with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Also included was a clip from the classic film “Carmen Jones,” with Max set up on a bar drumming while Pearl Bailey sang and dancers acted out a joyous scene; and what might be characterized as an early music video from Max’s classic drum & voice mash-up of his solo and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech from Roach’s Chatahoochie Red album (Columbia Records), replete with animated drawings of Roach and King. Later son Raoul Roach recalled being in the room as Max patiently explained his request to use King’s speech in his music context by telephone to Coretta Scott King.

Max Roach’s children: left to right Daryl, Maxine, Raoul, Dara and Ayo at Monday’s Library of Congress event (photo: Washington Post)

Appelbaum also previewed several of the audio treasures in the Roach collection, including a rarest of rare living room recording of the late and somewhat mysterious Philadelphia piano master Hassan Ibn Ali, whom Max had famously introduced on the pianist’s heretofore only known recording as The Legendary Hassan on their Atlantic Records trio date with Art Davis on bass. Also among the audio Appelbaum previewed at the event was a clip from an Ossie Davis/Ruby Dee theatrical documentary with Max on drums and Billy Taylor on piano. Our collective appetites whetted for all things Max, Larry’s conversation with the master’s children provided further insights into this complex man.

We so often think of these giants as somehow larger than life, beyond reproach even. To his children he was just “Dad”, no matter if Miles Davis was sitting across from them at dinner as he often was, or Dizzy Gillespie was in the house playing chess, Harry Belafonte dropped by to chew the fat, or countless other notables were at the house enjoying Max’s company, some perhaps imploring his participation in one human rights campaign or another. As Maxine Roach, the violist and leader of the Uptown String Quartet (and lone musician among Max’s children) remarked “Our family is thrilled that our father’s rich legacy has found a home at the Library of Congress. Our father had a sense of his place in the history of America’s original music and for decades he collected testaments to his mastery in the form of recorded sounds, video, photos, papers, letters, awards, collaborations, gifts, honors, struggles and friendships. All will be on display at this very great and prestigious institution.”

Max’s meticulousness in preserving his legacy was driven home several times at Monday’s event. During his presentation Appelbaum remarked that elements in Max’s collection mark the beginning of what he envisions as a new research phase in jazz history, provided by access to musicians’ official business papers, as opposed to the anecdotal and often sketchy recollections of business dealings in the music’s historic days. Indeed, among the sample artifacts on display at Monday’s event were a couple of Max’s performance contracts, including one from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

In addition to a couple of interview opportunities, I had the good fortune of being in Max Roach’s company on several occasions, including a long afternoon spent in the home of a mutual friend in Cleveland at which he invited a visit next time we were in New York. In town for a festival, along with good friend and pianist Eric Gould (current Jazz Composition Chair at Berklee College of Music), we took him up on that invitation and stopped by his Central Park West apartment. We were greeted warmly and spent a great afternoon being regaled, Max holding court with the added bonus of Amiri Baraka in the house working with Max on his memoirs – the manuscript of which is now part of the Library of Congress Max Roach Collection.

During Monday’s program the mind drifted back to the many interviews with Randy Weston for our book African Rhythms (Duke University Press) when Randy would recount his great times growing up with Max in their Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood; about how he first met Dizzy Gillespie at Max’s house, with George Russell sketching out “Cubana Be, Cubana Bop” as he recovered from tuberculosis. Or how one day he dropped by Max’s and there was Charlie Parker, whereby Max insisted that Randy immediately play some of his compositions for Bird. That Max Roach was a pivotal figure of 21st century world culture is certainly clarified by the enormity and importance of his artifacts now lovingly stored and in preservation at the Library of Congress.

This enormous Max Roach Collection includes over 100,000 items, approximately 80,000 of which are manuscripts and papers, and hundreds of sound and video recordings, including unreleased recordings of Max and Abbey Lincoln in concert in Iran, and a duet recording with Cecil Taylor in Italy. The Max Roach Collection will be available to researchers in the Library’s Performing Arts Reading Room in their Madison Building, located on the opposite corner from the U.S. Capital Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. For more information on this collection as well as the LOC’s holdings in music, theater and dance go online to www.loc.gov/rr/perform/.

ARTIST/TRACK/ALBUM TITLE/LABEL
theme: Ernestine Anderson, In the Evening
Kuumba Heath, Dunia, Kawaida, Trip
Albert Heath, Dr. Jeh, Kwanza, Muse
Wes Montgomery, Gone With the Wind, The Incredible Jazz Guitar, Riverside
Yusef Lateef, Russell and Elliott, Detroit, Atlantic
Herbie Hancock, The Prisoner, The Prisoner, Blue Note
Tootie Heath-Ethan Iverson-Ben Street, Out of Nowhere, Smalls Live
Tootie Heath-Ethan Iverson-Ben Street, Tootie’s Tempo, Tootie’s Tempo, Smalls
Tootie Heath-Ethan Iverson-Ben Street, Fire Waltz, Tootie’s Tempo, Smalls
WHAT’S NEW/THE NEW RELEASE HOUR
theme: Louis Armstrong/Oscar Peterson, What’s New
Vanessa Rubin/Don Braden, I Can’t Wait, Full Circle, Creative
T.K. Blue, Once Loved, A Warm Embrace, BluJazz
Helen Sung, It Don’t Mean a Thing, Anthem for a New Day, Concord
The 3 Cohens, Black, Tightrope, Anzic
Mimi Jones, Patriot, Balance, Hot Tone
Pete Rodriguez, Shut Up and Play Your Horn, Caminando con Papi, Destiny

Ancient/Future hosted by Willard Jenkins airs Wednesday nights 10-midnight on WPFW 89.3FM in the DC area; streaming live at http://www.wpfwfm.org

contact: willard@openskyjazz.com

The Breath Courses Through Us is a provocative new jazz film that will have its premiere on Friday, January 31. For this year’s edition of his annual Library of Congress Jazz Film Fridays series, produced by Larry Appelbaum. The Breath Courses Through it will be part of a double feature of Alan Roth films, and admission is free (call 202/707-5502 to reserve yours). As always Appelbaum’s always-intriguing film series will play in the LOC’s cozy Mary Pickford Theatre in the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Avenue S.E. in one of the more classy examples of your tax dollars at work.

Both The Breath Courses Through Us and the double-feature Inside Out in the Open focus on the left side of the jazz spectrum; the former focusing on The New York Art Quartet (John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Milford Graves, and Reggie Workman. While Inside Out in the Open features such fearless explorers as Marion Brown, Baikida Carroll, Burton Greene, Joseph Jarman, Rudd, Alan Silva, Tchicai, Daniel Carter, William Parker, Susie Ibarra and Matthew Shipp. A major bonus of The Breath Courses Through Us will be an appearance by the great poet-author Amiri Baraka, who ascended to ancestry earlier this month. The films will be introduced by bassist and WPFW programmer Luke Stewart.

In an email exchange with filmmaker Alan Roth I was delighted to learn that we are fellow Clevelanders. Clearly some questions were in order, particularly regarding the premiere of The Breath Courses Through Us, his 2013 feature.

Film maker ALAN ROTH

What has been your experience as a filmmaker?
My filmmaking actually began when I was in high school, when I made my first super-8 film, a study of hands. I made other work, much of it very political, over the next couple of years, then, I lost my camera! My political, social and labor activism took precedence for many years to come.

After an almost 19-year career in the U.S. Postal Service in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, I came back to the moving image with video, and fell in love with filmmaking again. In the early 90s, I made a major decision to leave my guaranteed life-time job to be a filmmaker. In 2001, I released my first documentary film Inside Out In The Open, which was my first examination of the music known as free jazz.

Besides my longer work, I was documenting events in New York City during the time of 9/11, some of which became part of the collective film Seven Days in September, shown in theatres and on A&E. I also co-directed a short film used in the campaign for marriage equality in New Jersey.

A major work I am very proud of was my participation in a project Womens Power Against HIV/AIDS. This was an innovative approach, begun in 2006, to use soap opera stories delivered on cellphones as a means to change the sexual/social behavior of African-American women, who made up a significant percentage of new HIV cases. It was a very sensitive approach based on the real stories of women. This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

I am now beginning a new work in Mexico City about two indigenous folkloric dancers, their struggle to raise a family (they are a married couple), their daily work and culture, and the relevance of traditional dance in contemporary Mexican society. I hope to finish that film in early 2015.

What was the genesis of this film The Breath Courses Through Us?
My first film, Inside Out In The Open, included among the interviews both John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd, and their formation of the New York Art Quartet. During my editing of the ‘rough cut’ of the film, which became my master’s thesis at the New School for Social Research, I was informed by Tchicai about the reunion. I thought “what a perfect follow-up” and gained permission from the rest of the musicians to document the reunion. I was privileged to work with cinematographer Ronald Gray, who at the time was teaching cinematography at the New York University film school graduate program. This footage is the core of The Breath Courses Through Us.

Stalwart drummer MILFORD GRAVES from the New York Art Quartet reunion

I still had my first film to complete and I focused on that, adding segments that were needed in light of the negativity about these musicians and other historical omisions in the last section of Ken Burn’s Jazz. Little by little, I kept working on the new film, but again, with my full-time attention on the Women’s Project work, it took many extra years to complete the new film. It was totally coincidental that my film and the Triplepoint Records 5 vinyl boxset of the lost recordings of the New York Art Quartet were released within one month of each other, and now, being premiered during the 50th anniversary of the founding of the group.

The title of this film is rather provocative; how did you pair this title with the subject matter?
During the soundcheck for the 1999 reunion concert, the musicians were improvising, merely to allow the tech people to set levels. Baraka read some poetry from memory, including the beginning of his poem “X.” There is a line in the poem “the blood courses through us,” and mistakenly or not, he said “the breath courses through us.” I chose to use that version as my title as a metaphor for the continuity of the living breath of African-American musical tradition and the creative life among these artists. In an early scene in the film, Baraka, at that soundcheck, says “everything you don’t understand is explained in art,” the opening lines of that poem. The film is as much about the present tense in the lives of these artists, along with their individual personalities, with the formation of the group, their own entries into the musical life, and the lifeline of creative music.

What did you find most compelling about the music and the musicians you feature in this film?
Both my parents loved jazz. They told me about going to see Art Tatum play in Cleveland, and as I grew up, I listened to a wide variety of music, including music from other countries in the world and more experimental electronic music and John Cage. I learned to play classical piano as a child, but in my teen years, when my parents decided to hire a jazz pianist to teach me, I had much trouble handling the new language. It was easier to learn to read charts and improv with pop music.

My listening, though, generally leaned towards the more progressive side of music, which included more chance and improvisation. This was the reason I decided many years later to do my first film on this music, not as a dry historical film, but rather one that lets the musicians tell their story, and emphasize those personalities as integral to the creative process. They think it is important to emotionally connected to one’s creative work and perhaps do the same for one’s audiences.

Like many other lovers of this music, I find the music inspirational and transportive, but also challenging. To quote the late Marion Brown from my first film, “ya got to make them think!” Films should engage the audience, involve them actively, challenge them, and hopefully give them reason to walk out of the theater with questions and the urge to learn more. For that reason, my films are not a clear ABC of explanation, but rather a quilt of information that I try to sew together lyrically with its own thrust forward in time.

I sincerely hope that these two films will become part of the repertory of films that give props to the musicians and new African-American musical traditions that emerged from this period in New York City in 1964, which also sprung up in Chicago, St. Louis and so many other places. I think they had more of an impact on music that they have ever been given credit for.

Beyond this Library of Congress premier when and where will this film be available for viewing?
The Breath Courses Through Us is just beginning to be seen around the world. It will continue to be seen in film festivals, and more alternative spaces. I hope it could be included in jazz and music festivals as well. Eventually, it will be available for the public as a DVD or download.

The New York City premiere is scheduled for April, and that should be an important event with the musicians present. The loss of John Tchicai 15 months ago, and now Amiri Baraka were very difficult to take. I am happy to say that Tchicai saw a rough cut of the film, and Baraka had seen the final version. We are losing many in that generation, but I felt good that this film can allow them to continue to speak and perform for the world.

Robert Glasper (left) and Jason Moran opened with some classic Blue Note reminiscences.

Blue Note Records, perhaps the most honored and trusted record label in recorded jazz history, launched a promised series of concerts and performances marking its 75th anniversary on Wednesday, January 8 at Town Hall, the venerable old concert house located just east of Times Square. As day 2 of this year’s Winter Jazz Festival this Blue Note celebration also tapped into the younger audience constituency represented by WJF’s growing presence as a January essential on the NYC cultural calendar. Of course having Jason Moran and Robert Glasper as that evening’s lead concert artists certainly assisted in drawing that much more of that audience sector to the old haunt on 43rd Street, scene to more than a few memorable jazz concert moments down through its rich history.

WBGO’s Josh Jackson, himself representative of that growing 20/30-something jazz audience, served as affable MC in bringing Glasper and Moran to the two embraced grand pianos that had rested majestically onstage as two ebony titans, silently awaiting some learned touch as the audience earlier filed in. Arriving in tuxedos, each playfully sporting a pair of Blue Note imprint Adidas sneakers (Moran kidding Glasper on the freshness of his kicks versus his own well-worn pair), as Jackson detailed their duo piano exploits set in honor of the original Blue Note Records encounter that launched the label, the pairing of boogie woogie masters Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. What followed was a program – led by Moran and Glasper – that successfully achieved the neat balancing act of being loose and relaxed, with plenty of witty verbal and musical banter between the two, and tightly programmed at the same time, which is no small feat.

Facing each other seated at conjoined concert grand pianos, they were flanked by a Fender-Rhodes, a baby brother in the keyboard family that suggested at least some elements of their respective contemporary exploits for their eager audience. Which brings me to an intriguing sidebar. Surveying the audience it was clear that many in attendance may have been there with certain expectations of some measure of a Robert Glasper Experiment and Jason Moran & the Bandwagon experience. They did get a few morsels of that throughout the evening, in the form of a tune or a familiar line or two injected into the largely classic proceedings; occasional reference kernels in their solo and duo opening set that sparked audience recognition without veering too far afield of the concert’s overall theme of celebrating the Blue Note label. The camaraderie between the two pianists was evident throughout the evening, starting with their both emanating from the same Houston, TX arts high school.

The pianists played cat & mouse on the keyboards, eliciting classic boogie piano figures from the Ammons/Lewis ouevre as their point of departure. Gradually Glasper began roping the muse forward into the Blue Note Records post-bop sweet spot. During the second half of their opening duo set they traded off Blue Note classics, punctuated by a piano refrain that served as their inside signal to each other and the audience that one or another Blue Note classic piece was afoot – some Herbie Hancock “Cantaloupe Island” here, Moran conjuring up Lee Morgan‘s familiar “Sidewinder,” some Horace Silver here, a Joe Henderson classic there… Then a bit of lovely quietude in homage to their mothers, Moran starting on Rhodes. Another highlight was Moran’s “Retrograde,” his de-construction of Andrew Hill‘s “Smokestack.”

For the second set the pianists were joined by two more Houston homies – the explosive and endlessly inventive drummer Eric Harland and bassist Alan Hampton – plus Ravi Coltrane on tenor and soprano saxophones. Never afraid of challenges they opened with Ornette Coleman‘s “Toy Dance”, an undersung gem from the master’s overlooked Blue Note record “New York is Now.” Throughout the evening the sound of surprise was in the air with their tune selections.

The vocalist and frequent Glasper collaborator Bilal unassumingly eased onstage for an essay on the pianist’s “What is Love,” giving the audience a welcomed Experiment moment judging by the buzz of recognition when they got into the tune. Moran joined Bilal for his distinctive arrangement of “Body & Soul,” which he explained was a product of his connections with the singer during experimental days at Brooklyn’s former, lamented Up Over Jazz Cafe.

Monk runs deep in the influence bag for these players’ and they did a neat turn on Thelonious’ “Criss Cross,” with Bilal’s improvised lyrics to the master’s typically knotty line. By closing with one of Glasper’s early originals they sent a happy audience on its way with just a bit of the sound of recognition. Jason Moran is getting a first class education in concert programming through his stint as artistic advisor at the Kennedy Center, and Glasper certainly proved a fit concert programmer as well. The pacing, repertoire selection, humorous asides, and monologues with the audience all lent themselves to a marvelous kickoff to a planned series of concerts in celebration of Blue Note Records at 75.

Robert Glasper modeling his Blue Note special edition Adidas kicks

Photos by: BART BABINSKI

Here are ten essential 2013 releases (listed in no particular rank order), plus three reissues and our choices for Best Vocal Album, Best Debut Album, and Best Latin Jazz Album:

2013 RELEASES

Michele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, 30 Years: A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (Advance Dance Disques)

Terri Lyne Carrington, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue (Concord)

Wayne Shorter, Without a Net (Blue Note)

Roberto Fonseca, Yo (Concord)

Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)

Nicole Mitchell, Aquarius (Delmark)

Dave Holland, Prism (Dare 2)

Albert “Tootie” Heath, Tootie’s Tempo (Sunnyside)

Allison Miller, No Morphine, No Lilies (Royal Potato Family)

Archie Shepp Attica Blues Orchestra Live, I Hear the Sound (Harmonia Mundi)

REISSUES
Jack DeJohnette, Special Edition (ECM)

Miles Davis, Original Mono Recordings (Columbia/Legacy)

Charles Lloyd, Quartets (ECM)

VOCAL
Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)

DEBUT
Sons of Kemet, Burn (Naim)

LATIN
Michele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, 30 Years: A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (Advance Dance Disques)