The Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions and
The Complete Vee Jay Lee Morgan-Wayne Shorter Sessions
Mosaic Records is proud to announce the release of two new boxed sets featuring three of the most provocative leaders of the hard bop movement. The Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions includes 7 CDs comprising 95 tracks representing Roach's entire output for Emarcy and Mercury Records recorded between 1956 and 1960. The Complete Vee Jay Lee Morgan-Wayne Shorter Sessions features all of the material recorded by these two masters, together and separately, on 6 CDs of material recorded between 1959 and 1961, while they were making history as the frontline of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
As with all boxed sets on Mosaic, the greatest care has been taken to reproduce this music with the best sound quality and an extensive booklet containing detailed information to heighten both the enjoyment of the music and an understanding of the historical perspective in which it was originally created. The Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions booklet features Chuck Stewart's photographs from the original sessions, a complete discography, reminiscences by musicians who played with Roach, and essays by Kenny Washington, Burt Korall and Ben Young, who also produced this reissue set.
The 7 CDs include not only all 10 Max Roach +4 albums, but also the meeting between Max's and Buddy Rich's groups entitled “Rich vs. Roach" (with arrangements by Gigi Gryce), 14 previously unissued alternate takes and a variety of material that previously had only been available on Japanese imports.
Space simply doesn't allow for the inclusion of Max Roach's history as one of the greatest drummers in jazz history. Suffice it to say that he has performed with virtually every major jazz artist since his debut with Coleman Hawkins in 1943; and that he has been in the front lines of every major movement in jazz -- from his position as pre-eminent drummer on the early bebop scene with Bird and Diz, through the hard bop era, the Sixties exploratory scene, the multi-cultural musical fusions, and even hip-hop.
The music contained on The Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions begins shortly after the devastating blow of the tragic death of his partner, the peerless trumpeter Clifford Brown, along with their pianist Richie Powell in an automobile crash in June of 1956. Three months later, with trumpeter Kenny Dorham and pianist Ray Bryant joining Sonny Rollins and bassist George Morrow, the new Max Roach +4 continued to expand the jazz horizon, experimenting with difficult time signatures and a freer base from which the soloists could operate.
Over the next few years, a veritable who's who of jazz stars passed through the group's front line, including tenormen Hank Mobley, George Coleman and Stanley Turrentine, trombonist Julian Priester, tubaist Ray Draper, and trumpeters Tommy Turrentine and another great, tragically short-lived musician, the brilliant and innovative Booker Little. Except for a few sessions with Bryant and Eddie Baker, the group went piano-less, relying on Roach's amazing drumming and fine bassists like Bob Cranshaw, Nelson Boyd and Bob Boswell for the rhythmic thrust.
With a great selection of material, including wonderful standards and a fantastic array of jazz compositions by Max, Charlie Parker, George Russell, Duke Ellington, Sonny Clark and many more, this collection shows once again why Roach is one of the most important figures in jazz history.
While Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter are properly viewed as two of the enduring members of Blue Note Records' amazing roster of artists in the '50s and '60s, the music contained on The Complete Vee Jay Lee Morgan-Wayne Shorter Sessions fills in the formative periods of these two legends.
Morgan, who was an emerging star at the stunning age of 15, had already recorded half a dozen sessions for Blue Note prior to his Vee Jay dates and would go on to become one of jazz's most popular and important figures, with the hugely popular “Sidewinder" and many more Blue Note dates later on. However, these were Shorter's first recordings as a leader. He would, of course, go on to record a number of great recordings for Blue Note as both leader and sideman, as well as changing jazz history as a member of Miles Davis' '60s “freebop" quintet and co-leader of the legendary fusion unit, Weather Report. Shorter and Morgan perform together on their co-led “The Young Lions" (joined by the extraordinary altoist Frank Strozier) and on Wayne's first sole-led date “Introducing Wayne Shorter," with Miles Davis
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