He puts so much feeling in his playing, am I the only one who can hear the melody in this ? Also this is pretty old, so you have to understand how unique his style was at the time.
Very creative and a fine demonstration of drumming skills. This is the art of drumming, not excessive noise making with an industrial-sized drum and cymbal cluster.
Is the reason this video has so many dislikes really becuz in the description some guy said "best drummer of all time"? Jesus Christ ppl r entitled to their own opinion and this is a great video so some1 shouldn't dismiss it becuz of the uploaders opinion
Absolutely sensational! This video, while a little out of sync, is demonstrative of Max's amazing brush technique, between his repeated triplet figures, his ability to create a pulse by simply dragging the brushes around the snare, and his ways of getting as many sounds out of the snare as possible. Any drummer looking to improve their brush technique or soloing chops should watch this clip! Thanks so much for posting!
Certainly one of the greatest drummers of all time, could do anything with anything, saw him many times -- my favorite was to see him play and keep the beat as he disassembled the set. And a wonderful person, a true gentleman.
@shocxxxx Look it up, him Kenny Clarke and a select few others shifted the emphasis of drumming from solely timing to focusing on musicality. He is one of the MAIN fathers of drumming. Krupa helped invent the high-hat etc and others have made their contributions but Max was a huge force behind re-defining drumming. Before Max's era lineups read "X amount of musicians comma and a drummer".
@shocxxxx He was the biggest jazz drummer in the time period where jazz drummers where losing the '4 on the floor' bass drum pattern (bass drum on all 4 beats) and shifting the time to the ride cymbal and hihat, he was the first drummer to make a point of using all 4 limbs independently, he redefined jazz drumming by playing the swung jazz-ride pattern but making the bass drum strokes abrupt and un-syncopated (then called 'dropping bombs') and by mimicing melody and musical passages.
It's funny how a bunch of drummers can watch a video of the drummer that allowed all drummers after him to ACTUALLY BE RESPECTED AS MUSICIANS... and hate on him for any reason they can. Know your roots. None of us would be this far without the man you're seeing in this video.
I'm sorry, folks, but there's no "best drummer." There's your favorite and his favorite and their favorite and our favorite and my favorite, and even my favorite changes, depending on how I feel, what kind of music's being discussed, etc. But there's no "best." Sorry.
Which in case you would do a simple tally of individuals to see who they think the best drummer is and it would be a quantitative amount. You implicitly state that the best drummer, is falsified by the the fact that it pertains to each individual but you offer up literally the worst way to quantify it (by arbitrary means). The best drummer may be arbitrary but it's clear that you think that anyone's favorite drummer could be anyone on the planet. That's just nonsense inside of a box labeled Rob Johnson's Johnson ideas.
Redsock let me just clear it up for the both of you the best drummer is Neil Peart. Why do I say that? Yes he is my favorite but he is also the drummer that the majority of professional drummers called the best. And since professional drummers know more about drumming than the three of us combined I'm going to go with their opinion.
Tom Vet But Neil Peart would tell you Buddy Rich was the greatest. Rob Johnson is right, there is no best. Someone is always going to be better than the other at something.
Max is one of the greats but I have to admit that while waitching this I was thinking that if I was his wife I'd be saying, "Max, you've spent AGES brushing that drum! How about putting some of those skills to use on the windows? I'm sure you'll have them sparkling in no time." :)
you're obviously 12 and I am wasting my time I teach music history and roots of rhythm at a university maybe you should enroll in my class when you are old enough
there isn't a single comment on here by someone who actually knows how difficult it is to play with brushes and the dedication that it takes to do it right. Max Roach is beyond legendary.....get educated all of you.
First, Drums Unlimited and Money Jungle are classics. Second, this vid demonstrates a specific jazz technique. If you're not a music student or a pro, don't worry about not getting what he's doing. Third, "clean" has been jazz slang since the 1930s for first-rate work. Lastly, nobody can whine and think at the same time. I knew Max and he was brilliant, always: "Jazz is a science." Every cat in New York begged in, chance came, to share time with this man.
@MYNAMETAYLA I don't know for sure when he became a Gretsch endorsed performer, but I started playing Gretsch in 1962 and Max Roach was listed and featured as a "signature artist" in the catalogs back then.
Great drumming is not just about who can beat a set of drums to a pulp and about how fast they can do it. Come on folks, this is jazz drumming. Appreciate it for what it is. And BTW this is great drumming. If one were to ask a great drummer such as Neil Peart what he thought of this, I think he would agree that this is great drumming. Take a look at some other Max Roach drumming. I think anyone would agree that he is quite a drummer.
when people look at this and say they could do better...technically, yes, this doesn't appear that tough. BUT... it's the innovation in the way he attacks and uses the brushes producing DYNAMIC rhythms that most drummers wouldn't think of that make this truly brilliant.
Max Roach gave my brother, also a drummer, his "jazz name". Max occasionally hits the Bird of Paradise, a jazz club in Ann Arbor. My brother went over to his table, introduced himself. Max pretended not to hear the name: "Eh? Your name is 'Cats'? No? Well, it is now"
@WindyCityJazz As a drummer, I gotta agree with you, this guy was like the John Cage of drumming. But you gotta admit, it does look like "Brush on, Brush off"
For people who don't get it: brushes have NO rebound on a snare head. He's doing clean, tight rolls from wrist action alone, and doing so with great musicality.
This might not be the best example of Max's abilities, but I agree, he was one of the defining drummers of the century. Check out any other clip of his, and you might get an idea for how he pioneered jazz drumming.
Why am I not surprised that viewers say, "OMGZ HE IZ NOT T3H N3IL P3ART!!" There are different kinds of drumming which are collective known as "Percussion." It takes a lot of technique and practice to play pieces like this. Just because it isn't rock band drumming doesnt mean it isnt good.
@shocxxxx I didn't realize you were a drummer, friend. It does help, because I'm trying to tell you that there are a whooooole lot of random people with that opinion. I personally don't believe in 'bests' when talking about musicians, and I never said that. Just a boatload of drummers consider him the toward the top of the most influential drummers. You said that I'd be hard pressed to find em... I guarantee that neither of us would be. He isn't one of my influences, but he influenced them.
@shocxxxx I'm really not trying to be an ass, I just feel like being an obsessive drummer for the better part of the past 8 years would have me reading more about drumming than you might've gotten around to. Drummers have more of a sense of community than other groups of musicians seem to, and I don't know of any other one drummer who is regarded as highly as Roach among us. Im pretty sure even Buddy Rich saw him as cutting edge, or else he wouldn't have agreed to do an album with him.
@shocxxxx Bebop came from swing and was more advanced, most musicians agree on that. Modern Drummer put out a tribute issue to Roach after his death in 07. Jeff Hamilton, Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, Louie Bellson, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Hart, Densmore, Cobham, Erskine... all of these drummers regard Roach as one of the most important and influential drummers ever in that issue. Also the bebop era influenced more music to come, at this point.
@shocxxxx You are allowed to have your own opinions, but the general drumming community puts bebop drumming a class above big band and swing; and thus Roach above Rich and Krupa. Also, those drummers didn't really do much to the styles they were playing besides raise the bar. That stuff is straightforward in a time when all western music was. Go back to your jazz class teachers and ask them which was more influential for drummers to come. Fame does not equal influence.
Again, great player for the era. Compared to modern times it's horrible. If someone played the audio for a group of players without saying who it is, and asked them to guess the experience level of the player... nobody is going to say "oh that's a world class jazz master!"
Now everybody's drooling over fuggin' Dave Grohl and his one-beat garbage! Played with Paul McCartney! You could train a monkey to play like that, and probably better! Ughh!
Max Roach's strength was as a group drummer, not soloist. Listen to the Max Roach - Clifford Brown quintet recordings. He kept the group driving all the way through the fat tempos.
I love all these responses on the Max Roach videos saying either he's not good, they could play better, or they know someone else who can play better (like their lil bro..cmon) I bet Max can play a rock or hip-hop beat as good as anyone, but none of those rock or hip-hop drummers could even come close to playing good jazz. I hope to see those who think they can play the drums well post themselves with a few videos on here, so we can make comments about you.
didnt you see how fast he was cleaning that snare, that was truly amazing haha, but really tho i agree Max Roahc at his best does not describe the video.
Um, keep in mind it's only a snare, and not the whole kit. I don't think this vid was meant to show his greatest drumming ever. It would be like a pro-basketball player just showing off his free-throws.
I wish some of the other people here could understand how difficult and technically challenging the stuff that Max plays in this video is. You also have to remember that Max was one of the pioneers of the bebop style of drumming and innovated a very fresh and exciting approach to playing the instrument. His brush playing is unique and the modern brush masters like Jeff Hamilton got their ideas from guys like Max.
and to say the drum is a very young instrument shows how little you know about drumming history, the drum is the oldest recorded instrument. Its been around since about 6000 B.C, and the first kit was made in the 1800s (about 200 years ago)... the kit may be relatively young to some things, but as far as instruments go, its one of the oldest...
I used to think this guy was hack,I guess as you mature you appreciate the finer things life has to offer.Max Roach being one of them.Can't say anything different thats already been said about him.but let me add how wrong I was to think what I used to about his skill.
Well dupadeedo is correct. This is mostly in common time. A lot of jazz is. What isn't taken into consideration though is that most jazz drummers do with a single snare more than what most rock drummers can do with an entire kit.
@shocxxxx Ask any group of jazz drummers. Not "Smooth Jazz", not "Blues", not "Fusion", but Jazz Drummers. Then say "hard-pressed". Ginger Baker called him "Uncle Max".
@cast390 you are completely missing the point. It's not how hard or fast you you hit the drum it's the unique quality and energy the drummer and the drum has together. So no, not every 12 year old on youtube is as good as him
@shocxxxx Google Max Roach and Kenny Clarke again and actually read all of what you find. Those guys helped change drumming and invent bebop. By todays standards they aren't amazing but back then they were changing drumming.
I can imagine how good his SCRAMBLED EGGS must taste.
Max would OWN any of the modern day drummers. He and Buddy and Gene are the foundation for all that is drumming.
ID 10 T
He had an outstanding sense of composition.
this man is a hero. people who say otherwise have never played drums. simple as
peace
There's so much more to playing a snare drum than just smacking it on the 2+4.
Max Roach is a legend.
He puts so much feeling in his playing, am I the only one who can hear the melody in this ? Also this is pretty old, so you have to understand how unique his style was at the time.
Very creative and a fine demonstration of drumming skills. This is the art of drumming, not excessive noise making with an industrial-sized drum and cymbal cluster.
0:22 He smashed dat fly
Is the reason this video has so many dislikes really becuz in the description some guy said "best drummer of all time"? Jesus Christ ppl r entitled to their own opinion and this is a great video so some1 shouldn't dismiss it becuz of the uploaders opinion
Absolutely sensational! This video, while a little out of sync, is demonstrative of Max's amazing brush technique, between his repeated triplet figures, his ability to create a pulse by simply dragging the brushes around the snare, and his ways of getting as many sounds out of the snare as possible. Any drummer looking to improve their brush technique or soloing chops should watch this clip! Thanks so much for posting!
I love Max, saw him a bunch of times and he was so friendly and kind the one time I got to hang out with him after a gig.
RIP Max Roach! I'm going to miss you!
Max Roach is probably one of Steve Smith's biggest influence.
Certainly one of the greatest drummers of all time, could do anything with anything, saw him many times -- my favorite was to see him play and keep the beat as he disassembled the set. And a wonderful person, a true gentleman.
@shocxxxx Look it up, him Kenny Clarke and a select few others shifted the emphasis of drumming from solely timing to focusing on musicality. He is one of the MAIN fathers of drumming. Krupa helped invent the high-hat etc and others have made their contributions but Max was a huge force behind re-defining drumming. Before Max's era lineups read "X amount of musicians comma and a drummer".
So many cool tricks. Max beats have a "healing" sound. I can listen to them for hours.
Excatly SAME
Great way to describe him!
I'm flabbergasted. A work of drumming art. Stunning.
Jazz drummers are the best drummers
@shocxxxx He was the biggest jazz drummer in the time period where jazz drummers where losing the '4 on the floor' bass drum pattern (bass drum on all 4 beats) and shifting the time to the ride cymbal and hihat, he was the first drummer to make a point of using all 4 limbs independently, he redefined jazz drumming by playing the swung jazz-ride pattern but making the bass drum strokes abrupt and un-syncopated (then called 'dropping bombs') and by mimicing melody and musical passages.
not quite my tempo
It's funny how a bunch of drummers can watch a video of the drummer that allowed all drummers after him to ACTUALLY BE RESPECTED AS MUSICIANS... and hate on him for any reason they can.
Know your roots. None of us would be this far without the man you're seeing in this video.
I'm sorry, folks, but there's no "best drummer." There's your favorite and his favorite and their favorite and our favorite and my favorite, and even my favorite changes, depending on how I feel, what kind of music's being discussed, etc. But there's no "best."
Sorry.
Which in case you would do a simple tally of individuals to see who they think the best drummer is and it would be a quantitative amount. You implicitly state that the best drummer, is falsified by the the fact that it pertains to each individual but you offer up literally the worst way to quantify it (by arbitrary means). The best drummer may be arbitrary but it's clear that you think that anyone's favorite drummer could be anyone on the planet. That's just nonsense inside of a box labeled Rob Johnson's Johnson ideas.
Redsock let me just clear it up for the both of you the best drummer is Neil Peart. Why do I say that? Yes he is my favorite but he is also the drummer that the majority of professional drummers called the best. And since professional drummers know more about drumming than the three of us combined I'm going to go with their opinion.
Tom Vet But Neil Peart would tell you Buddy Rich was the greatest. Rob Johnson is right, there is no best. Someone is always going to be better than the other at something.
yoo that guy is awesome. he used to live on the floor under my cousin's apartmentt.
this made me lol
Max is one of the greats but I have to admit that while waitching this I was thinking that if I was his wife I'd be saying, "Max, you've spent AGES brushing that drum! How about putting some of those skills to use on the windows? I'm sure you'll have them sparkling in no time."
:)
you're obviously 12 and I am wasting my time
I teach music history and roots of rhythm at a university
maybe you should enroll in my class when you are old enough
thats fucking innovation
i would like to see you innovate something thats even worth hearing.
max roach is a true pioneer.
there isn't a single comment on here by someone who actually knows how difficult it is to play with brushes and the dedication that it takes to do it right. Max Roach is beyond legendary.....get educated all of you.
RIP Max; heaven just got a great rhythmic section.
First, Drums Unlimited and Money Jungle are classics. Second, this vid demonstrates a specific jazz technique. If you're not a music student or a pro, don't worry about not getting what he's doing. Third, "clean" has been jazz slang since the 1930s for first-rate work. Lastly, nobody can whine and think at the same time. I knew Max and he was brilliant, always: "Jazz is a science." Every cat in New York begged in, chance came, to share time with this man.
People, don't bother replying the haters. they don't hav the slightest idea who MAX ROACH is... only smart people listen to real jazz...
@MYNAMETAYLA I don't know for sure when he became a Gretsch endorsed performer, but I started playing Gretsch in 1962 and Max Roach was listed and featured as a "signature artist" in the catalogs back then.
*Hand to forehead*
Equipage, our warriors have returned from the forest!
Hey, you must LISTEN... this is an old video, you can't look at it as if it was made today... Just listen. Carefully. This man had a smooth touch.
Marching drumming and jazz drumming are COMPLETELY different. He's amazing and has great brush work, RIP.
if you dislike this, you don't know what it's like to play with brushes.
Most people have no clue about drumming, or the contributions Max has made to it. I'd ask Neil what he thinks of Max...
Great drumming is not just about who can beat a set of drums to a pulp and about how fast they can do it. Come on folks, this is jazz drumming. Appreciate it for what it is. And BTW this is great drumming. If one were to ask a great drummer such as Neil Peart what he thought of this, I think he would agree that this is great drumming. Take a look at some other Max Roach drumming. I think anyone would agree that he is quite a drummer.
HE RULES
best drummer ever, respect
when people look at this and say they could do better...technically, yes, this doesn't appear that tough. BUT... it's the innovation in the way he attacks and uses the brushes producing DYNAMIC rhythms that most drummers wouldn't think of that make this truly brilliant.
couldn't have said it better myself
max roach is king
Don't you love how people who have had NO impact on any kind of music are so quick to critisize the great one's who have? Mind boggling!
Kids! Today i'm making a cake in full speed!
That's an hour & four minutes I wont get back.
R.I.P.
i think heaven had a good rhythmic section when john banham showed up..
beautiful snare
you need to learn about the history of drum kit playing.
Max is one of the innovators of our very young instrument
Thank you sir ;o)
Max Roach gave my brother, also a drummer, his "jazz name". Max occasionally hits the Bird of Paradise, a jazz club in Ann Arbor. My brother went over to his table, introduced himself. Max pretended not to hear the name: "Eh? Your name is 'Cats'? No? Well, it is now"
He smokes some badass weed
@WindyCityJazz As a drummer, I gotta agree with you, this guy was like the John Cage of drumming.
But you gotta admit, it does look like "Brush on, Brush off"
For people who don't get it: brushes have NO rebound on a snare head. He's doing clean, tight rolls from wrist action alone, and doing so with great musicality.
No, he really doesn't. I was kind of like "..." at this, so I checked the Max Roach-Hi Hat link over on the right. OMG SO AWESOME.
I know, I know. If he were alive, you couldn't tell him, either.
This might not be the best example of Max's abilities, but I agree, he was one of the defining drummers of the century. Check out any other clip of his, and you might get an idea for how he pioneered jazz drumming.
R.I.P
He's the scambi egg chop suey mastah !!
Why am I not surprised that viewers say, "OMGZ HE IZ NOT T3H N3IL P3ART!!" There are different kinds of drumming which are collective known as "Percussion." It takes a lot of technique and practice to play pieces like this. Just because it isn't rock band drumming doesnt mean it isnt good.
@shocxxxx I didn't realize you were a drummer, friend. It does help, because I'm trying to tell you that there are a whooooole lot of random people with that opinion. I personally don't believe in 'bests' when talking about musicians, and I never said that. Just a boatload of drummers consider him the toward the top of the most influential drummers. You said that I'd be hard pressed to find em... I guarantee that neither of us would be. He isn't one of my influences, but he influenced them.
@shocxxxx I'm really not trying to be an ass, I just feel like being an obsessive drummer for the better part of the past 8 years would have me reading more about drumming than you might've gotten around to. Drummers have more of a sense of community than other groups of musicians seem to, and I don't know of any other one drummer who is regarded as highly as Roach among us. Im pretty sure even Buddy Rich saw him as cutting edge, or else he wouldn't have agreed to do an album with him.
@shocxxxx Bebop came from swing and was more advanced, most musicians agree on that. Modern Drummer put out a tribute issue to Roach after his death in 07. Jeff Hamilton, Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, Louie Bellson, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Hart, Densmore, Cobham, Erskine... all of these drummers regard Roach as one of the most important and influential drummers ever in that issue. Also the bebop era influenced more music to come, at this point.
@shocxxxx You are allowed to have your own opinions, but the general drumming community puts bebop drumming a class above big band and swing; and thus Roach above Rich and Krupa. Also, those drummers didn't really do much to the styles they were playing besides raise the bar. That stuff is straightforward in a time when all western music was. Go back to your jazz class teachers and ask them which was more influential for drummers to come. Fame does not equal influence.
Again, great player for the era. Compared to modern times it's horrible.
If someone played the audio for a group of players without saying who it is, and asked them to guess the experience level of the player... nobody is going to say "oh that's a world class jazz master!"
Very cool.
Now everybody's drooling over fuggin' Dave Grohl and his one-beat garbage! Played with Paul McCartney! You could train a monkey to play like that, and probably better! Ughh!
I'll bet he had a fly problem before he was famous...
I AM A DOLPHIN.
850 people are either jealous or extremely shallow minded!
Max Roach's strength was as a group drummer, not soloist. Listen to the Max Roach - Clifford Brown quintet recordings. He kept the group driving all the way through the fat tempos.
ringgo starr rules !!!!! so does Travis !
I love all these responses on the Max Roach videos saying either he's not good, they could play better, or they know someone else who can play better (like their lil bro..cmon)
I bet Max can play a rock or hip-hop beat as good as anyone, but none of those rock or hip-hop drummers could even come close to playing good jazz. I hope to see those who think they can play the drums well post themselves with a few videos on here, so we can make comments about you.
didnt you see how fast he was cleaning that snare, that was truly amazing haha, but really tho i agree Max Roahc at his best does not describe the video.
Um, keep in mind it's only a snare, and not the whole kit. I don't think this vid was meant to show his greatest drumming ever. It would be like a pro-basketball player just showing off his free-throws.
Haha never saw a guy cleaning a snare like that *G*
Well on the description it says the greatest drummer of all time
haha he well looks like he's cleaning it when he rolls the brushes. class
awesome
I wish some of the other people here could understand how difficult and technically challenging the stuff that Max plays in this video is. You also have to remember that Max was one of the pioneers of the bebop style of drumming and innovated a very fresh and exciting approach to playing the instrument. His brush playing is unique and the modern brush masters like Jeff Hamilton got their ideas from guys like Max.
and to say the drum is a very young instrument shows how little you know about drumming history, the drum is the oldest recorded instrument. Its been around since about 6000 B.C, and the first kit was made in the 1800s (about 200 years ago)... the kit may be relatively young to some things, but as far as instruments go, its one of the oldest...
Monster!!!
I want to see him play a whole drumset, all I can find it Hi-Hat and snare.
too cool
Im drumming for almost 12 years so far and I think its very impressive. There is some weird moments though, but if it makes him feel good, why not? :D
I used to think this guy was hack,I guess as you mature you appreciate the finer things life has to offer.Max Roach being one of them.Can't say anything different thats already been said about him.but let me add how wrong I was to think what I used to about his skill.
cast390 you had it right the first time. He was a hack.
Well dupadeedo is correct. This is mostly in common time. A lot of jazz is. What isn't taken into consideration though is that most jazz drummers do with a single snare more than what most rock drummers can do with an entire kit.
amen to that
how could you dislike this? he's showing all of you up
The man has more skill than everyone else combined.
@shocxxxx Ask any group of jazz drummers. Not "Smooth Jazz", not "Blues", not "Fusion", but Jazz Drummers. Then say "hard-pressed". Ginger Baker called him "Uncle Max".
sweeepy sweepy :)
Pretty sweet shit right here.
haha, that was a good one, ZING!
@cast390 you are completely missing the point. It's not how hard or fast you you hit the drum it's the unique quality and energy the drummer and the drum has together. So no, not every 12 year old on youtube is as good as him
Holy shit that was amazing. so fluent.
i coulda sworn that he was playin the drum with giant forks the first time..
@shocxxxx Google Max Roach and Kenny Clarke again and actually read all of what you find. Those guys helped change drumming and invent bebop. By todays standards they aren't amazing but back then they were changing drumming.
¡Admirable! Tiene un buen dominio percutivo. Y sabe explotar muy bien el uso de sus "brushes".