Max Roach and Abdullah Ibrahim

Some of my favorite Max Roach duet recordings feature him with the likes of Cecil Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Mal Waldron, Archie Shepp and Anthony Braxton. As you can probably tell, Max is my favorite drummer and I'm always excited to discover something of his that I've never seen before!

Here's a recent find of Max Roach in a musical dialogue with none other than pianist Abdullah Ibrahim:











I've always admired Max's way of really making the drums "speak". In fact, I've even heard him refer to his melodic style of drumming as being "lyrical" drumming. Max studied composition at the Manhattan School of Music early on in his career and I think he really approaches the drums from an almost compositional perspective. The way he organizes his vocabulary and phrases is always very clear and there is always lots to learn from listening and watching Max play the drums.