Friday, August 22, 2008

Max Roach & Booker Little: "Love for Sale"



This is the Max Roach Quintet (Booker Little trumpet, Max Roach drums, Ray Draper tuba, George Coleman tenor saxophone, and Art Davis bass) performing Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale”. The video is poor but the audio is a good example of the hard bop style of jazz during the height of its popularity during the 1950’s and 1960’s. The date of this video clip is unknown but it appears to be a television show from the 1950’s.

Maxwell Lemuel Roach (1924 – 2007) was a jazz percussionist, drummer and composer. He was one of the originals of bebop and is considered one of the most important drummers in jazz. He worked with many of the greatest jazz musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown as well as led his own groups.

Booker Little, Jr. (1938 – 1961) was a jazz trumpeter and composer. He died at age 23 of kidney failure. However, despite his premature death he was considered one of the best trumpet players to develop his own sound following Clifford Brown (another fantastic trumpet player who died at the age of 25). In fact, Little replaced Brown (following Kenny Dorham) on the Max Roach Quintet.

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