About this item

In addition to being one of the best jazz drummers of all time, Max Roach was a long-time civil rights activist. The cover art for the 1961 LP, 'We Insist! Freedom Now Suite', shows a photo of three black men at a lunch counter with a white man in a soda jerk's uniform attending them. It was an incendiary image directed at a still-segregated country. But the album does not stop at its cover. The music is superb, and includes an array of jazz stars, including singer Abbey Lincoln, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Walter Benton, trumpeter Booker Little, trombonist Julian Priester, and conguero Michael Babatunde Olatunji. This was (and still is) both a brilliant piece of music, and a political and social statement, which received a crown in the Penguin Guide to Jazzand a 5-star rating in Down Beat. Max Roach, drums & leader Booker Little, trumpet Julian Priester, trombone Walter Benton, tenor sax Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax James Schenck, bass Michael Olatunji, congas Ray Mantilla, percussion Tomas Duvall, percussion Abbey Lincoln, vocals New York, August 31 & September 6, 1960.

TRACK LISTING

1. Driva' Man
2. Freedom Day
3. Triptych: Prayer/ Protest/Peace
4. All Africa
5. Tears For Johannesburg
6. Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah