It's Time! a sonic tribute to Max Roach

 

It's Time!

a sonic tribute to MAX ROACH

featuring Jon McCaslin solo drums
and duets with Chris Tauchner keyboards
with special guest Raul Tabera percussion

Saturday, October 12th, 2024

8pm

Tickets $15

Congress Coffee
215 - 36th Avenue NE

Calgary, AB

www.congresscoffeeyyc.com

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I am really excited to finally present this project next month in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta. This year represents the 100th anniversary of Max Roach's birth and since he's one of my biggest influences and a major reason why I even play the drums, it seemed fitting that I perform something to honour his legacy.

For this upcoming performance in October I'll be playing half of the concert solo and the other joined by the creative force that is Chris Tauchner on keyboards. My good friend, Cuban percussionist and heavyweight rhythmatist Raul Tabera will also join us a for a few numbers.

The solo repertoire I'll be performing will be my interpretation and a mix of Max's iconic solo pieces (including The Drum Waltzes, Conversation and Drums Unlimited, among others) as well as some of my own Max Roach-inspired solo drum pieces that I've been developing and exploring over the last few years.

The concept of performing solo drums is one that has intrigued and challenged me for a number of years. Last year I performed solo for a project with a solo contemporary dancer and this upcoming gig is the next step towards even more of this kind of thing. In addition to Max Roach I've also checked out and been inspired by solo works from the likes of Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves, Gerry Hemingway, Beaver Harris, Pheeroan Aklaff, Ted Poor, Fransisco Mela, Billy Martin, Antonio Sanchez, Matt Wilson, Mark Guiliana and many more. So there's lots of material to work from and the sky is the limit. I'm hoping to record this music and further perform it in the future as well.

My duets with Chris Tauchner are somewhat inspired by the many iconic duets that Roach performed over the course of his lengthy career with artists such as Cecil Taylor, Abdullah Ibrahim, Randy Weston, Mal Waldron, Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Clark Terry and, of course, Dizzy Gillespie (a personal favourite of mine...)

The repertoire we are going to play will be drawn from different points in Max's career as a composer and from artists that he collaborated with (of which there were many!). We'll also play a few of my originals that definitely feature the drums in the spirit of Max Roach (hopefully he would have dug them...)

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to this gig and hope you can check this out if you find yourself in Calgary in October.

Indeed, it's time!