Minneapolis Spokesman
J. Henry Randall : 06/24/1955

New albums in the modern vein occupied our attention this week, and we hasten to say, they are of the stuff that makes you clamor for more.

First, there is a (Clifford) Brown and (Max) Roach, Inc. 12-incher which presents a variety of eloquent musicianship in the modern jazz idiom that is not only stimulating but imaginative in concept.

Cliff, trumpet and Max, drums, are supported by George Morrow, bass; Harold Land, tenor; and Richie Powell, piano, on two originals, Sweet Clifford and Mildama; and standards I’ll String Along With You, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Darn that Dream, I Get a Kick out of You, and Ghost of a Chance, which sports an unusually fine trumpet solo that will send you no end.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 07/16/1955

A hot, somewhat leathery group that is pivoted on the starkly individual talents of its co-leaders. In the course of the six standards and one original – a solo array of melodic typewriting Roach on drums – everyone in the group (Richie Powell is on piano, Harold Land on tenor) has his own side, with the exception of bassist George Morrow. The best moments occur during trumpeter Clifford Brown‘s seven-minute monologue on I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance.

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Down Beat : 09/07/1955
Nat Hentoff : 3 stars

Brown and Roach, Inc., is the first 12″ LP for Max and Clifford‘s regular unit, with tenor Harold Land, bassist George Morrow, and pianist Richie Powell. Clifford wrote the first original, and Max is responsible for the second. First tune displays Brown’s occasionally disturbing tendency to sacrifice linear cohesiveness and development for dazzling technical hot-rodding. In this respect, Brown might well pay heed to Thad Jones‘ effective use of economy of means when it’s necessary. On Ghost, however, Brown is excellent in a long solo that is one of the achievements of the year (note, too, the empathy of Max Roach’s backgrounding). Stompin’ also makes it on the strength of the co-leaders.

String is a vehicle for Powell, played too floridly and with a Don Shirley-like conception (except for a few moments when he is first joined by Roach and Morrow) that is largely out of context in a jazz LP. Mildama is a drum excursion with a brief set of rapid-fire comments from Brown. Max has been more inventive in this respect in the past, and his other solos on this set are better. The tune as a whole sounds too much like a CinemaScope production.

Dreams features Land. Here and elsewhere on the LP, Harold indicates that he’s a competent professional, but he lacks the excitement of individuality. The concluding Kick is based on a Thad Jones routine introduced to Max and Clifford by mutual friend Sonny Stitt. Here Clifford again is too involved with quantitative speed to contribute as much as he’s capable of musically. Ghost and Stompin’ and the superior drumming of Max throughout (except for the too melodramatic Mildama) are the highlights. But the rest could have been better and that’s why the mixed rating. If we used half stars, this would be 3 1/2.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

Eloquent prose in any language calls for several interdependent virtues. The writing must show complete mastery of sentence construction along with a knowledge of the subtleties of grammar and punctuation.

Eloquence in jazz calls for parallel qualifications. The horns, in their solos, construct the sentences; the rhythm section as a unit provides the grammar, while the drummer in particular pays attention to the punctuation.

In this, their first 12-inch LP, Clifford Brown and Max Roach and their cohorts again show, as they did on the 10-inch EmArcy MG 26043, their complete ability to meet these demands.

The individual stories of Clifford and Max were told in detail in the notes on their previous release. To recapitulate briefly, with a few added facts: Max was born in Brooklyn in 1924, majored in tympany and percussion at the Manhattan Conservatory of Music His first musical idol was Kenny Clarke; his first big-time jobs were provided by Duke Ellington and Count Basie, with both of whom he subbed briefly, and by Benny Carter, in whose band he toured with some time. As early as Feb., 1944 he recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, and throughout the bop era he was the most-recorded most sought-after young drummer. He visited Paris in Charlie Parker‘s combo at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California, that he decided to become a leader.

The search for sidemen was not easy. A trip back east produced only one find – but it was the most valuable of all, since Clifford Brown, whom he then took back to California to help get the group organized turned out to be a brilliant an invaluable partner.

Born October 30, 1930 in Wilmington, Delaware, Brownie was given his first trumpet by his father on entering senior high school.

Brownie first worked with Max on some Philadelphia gigs while still studying on a scholarship at Delaware State College. Before they were united in the present combo there were many vicissitudes, many of them not too happy: he was out of action for a whole year as a result of an automobile accident, out of jazz for another year working with Chris Powell‘s rhythm and blues group, and out of earshot for several months in the voluminous folds of the Lionel Hampton band. None of these events impeded him from winning the Down Beat Critics’ Poll in 1954 as the new trumpet star of the year.

Harold Land, the tenor sax man whom Clifford and Max found in California, is a 25-year-old product of the modernist school around San Diego. He, too, served in a rhythm-and-blues apprenticeship, working with such bands as Big Jay McNeely‘s, before crossing the thin line that separates that branch of music from modern jazz.

Richie Powell, the pianist, is the 23-year-old kid brother of every young jazz pianist’s idol, the one and only Bud Powell. (There is a third brother, the eldest, Skeets by name, who plays classical violin but is not in music professionally.) Richie had been with the Johnny Hodges band for the better part of a year before Max and Clifford latched on to him.

George Morrow, the bassist, is also in his early twenties and had been free-lancing around the San Francisco clubs when Brown & Roach Inc. found him. “He was our third bass man in three weeks,” recalls Max; “the others just didn’t feel they could do justice to the job.”

Sweet Clifford, the first number in this set, may give you a good idea of why the other bass players quit. Not many musicians can move their fingers four-to-the-bar at that tempo, let alone play the right notes. Sweet Clifford gets things off to a wild start.

Ghost of a Chance, composed about a quarter of a century ago by Victor Young and Bing Crosby, has had dozens of experiences as a jazz vehicle, but none more inspired than Clifford Brown’s. His seven-minute solo (interrupted only by 16 bars of Powell piano) is a masterpiece of imaginative improvisation and should stand out, even in the days of a hundred new records a week, as one of the great trumpet performances of recent years.

Stompin’ at the Savoy, originated by Edgar Sampson in the Chick Webb band in 1934, provides excellent material here for Land, Powell and Brown, followed by Max in a sensational encounter with sticks and snares. The “out” chorus is based on a 52nd Street version that Don Byas used to play in the mid-’40s.

I’ll String Along With You is a well constructed piano performance, starting ad lib and later easing into tempo for an interpretation of the old pop song that show’s cohesion, continuity and confidence – and, incidentally, no perceptible fraternal influence. Richie is obviously capable of ploughing a path of his own.

Mildama, a synthetic title dreamed up by Max to convey the exotic mood of the piece, is mainly a drum solo in three stages of development; first a primitive feel, in no particular tempo, then a steadier rhythmic emphasis with rising intensity, and thirdly a lighter swinging mood. It is a musical design, reflecting the sense of form and the extraordinary technical prowess inherent in every Roach performance.

Darn That Dream, a pretty pop tune dating from 1939, is heard here in an eminently listenable solo performance by Harold Land.

Thad Jones, the great Detroit trumpet man, was responsible for the original routine on I Get A Kick Out Of You, with its 3/4 effects, its rubato and syncopation; Sonny Stitt, another Detroiter and an old friend of all concerned, introduced it to Max and Clifford. Brownie’s choruses are a highlight in a rousing treatment that brings the session to a swingingly happy end.