MAX ROACH : MEMBER DON'T GIT WEARY [Arc]

Catalogue : Arc-Atlantic / ARC 005
Format : LP, Vinyl, Reissue
Condition : New
Country : USA
Released : 2023
Genre : Jazz

Roach recorded the album during a deeply turbulent time in US history, in the aftermath of the assassinations of US attorney General Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. The record sees the bebop originator lean into the tumult, embracing a broiling churn of modal and post-bop sounds that prefigures the afro-conscious spiritual jazz that would evolve further across the next decade. Roach is joined on this endeavour by a new generation of young future heavyweights; Gary Bartz on sax, Charles Tolliver on trumpet, Stanley Cowell on piano, Jymie Merritt on electric bass, and vocalist Andy Bey on the title track. Tolliver and Cowell would go on to form the seminal Strata-East and in many ways this record embodies the template of that sound. This record marks a pivotal moment in not only Roach’s career but the course of jazz in general.
This Arc Records reissue of Members, Don’t Git Weary is mastered in Mono from the original analogue master tapes by the multi-Grammy winning Bernie Grundman.