Audio : July, 1957
Charles A. Robertson

This is the first record made by the Max Roach Quintet since the tragic deaths in an automobile accident last summer of Clifford Brown and Richie Powell, though the leader, tenorman Sonny Rollins and Kenny Dorham, trumpet, have added their valuable presence to to numerous LPs in the interim. It shows a technical proficiency that is breathtaking, and a free exchange of ideas that come from complete integration. Ezz-thetic, Mr. X, and Woodyn’ You are typical bop workouts. Just One of Those Things is taken at a seemingly impossible clip, and by contrast Body and Soul slows down for sustained cadenzas by Rollins. In a twin-track recording, Dr. Free-Zee allows Roach to solo on tympani as well as drums, though not as effectively as in his date with Thelonious Monk. EmArcy does not always take as much care with sound as its parent Mercury, but this is not one of those times.

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Billboard : 04/29/1957
Spotlight on… selection

This dynamic, inventive program is the most promising new set cut by ace modern drummer Roach since his late collaborator, Clifford Brown, was alive and and slicing best sellers with him. The more than adequate replacement is the amazing tenor man, Sonny Rollins, plus the ever-improving trumpeter Kenny Dorham. Ray Bryant is excellent in the late Richie Powell‘s piano chair, and apparently Max is back in business. Smart cover and modern jazz that can keep listeners wide awake. Try Ezz-thetic or the original sounds on Body and Soul.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 06/23/1957

With the drummer man reshaping his combo without the brilliance of trumpeter Clifford Brown. It’s Kenny Dorham, a former Jazz Messenger, who has been tapped for the chair emptied by death on the highway. The tenor sax of Sonny Rollins captures the spotlight. Ray Bryant‘s on piano with George Morrow, bass. A satisfying jazz session; with six tracks. One is a short snorter, double taping of Roach on drums and tympani. Roach keeps the bombast to a minimum on much of the music.

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Oakland Tribune
Russ Wilson : 06/02/1957

Max Roach Plus Four is the first LP drummer Roach has made since the death in a car crash last June of his associates, Clifford Brown and Richie Powell. With Roach are trumpeter Kenny Dorham, pianist Ray Bryant, tenorist Sonny Rollins, and bassist George Morrow. One of the numbers is a two-minute twin-track recording of Roach playing drums and tympani; the five others are extended blowing sessions. The approach varies from the tender treatment accorded Body and Soul, marked by a fine Bryant solo, to the frantic version of Just One of Those Things. But on them all a group of talented modernists provide something of value.

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Pittsburgh Courier
Harold L. Keith : 09/28/1957
4 stars

Ken Dorham emerges as the start of the Max Roach Plus Four album on EmArcy’s fine label. Ken has his weaker moments with a sound that is rather thin in spots; however, he is heard at his best on Just One of Those Things and Woodyn’ You.

Sonny Rollins plays an ecstatic Body and Soul, which is bound to bring up remembrances of the epic cutting done on this particular opus by the “Bean,” Coleman Hawkins. There is no need to elaborate about the work of Max Roach who is just about the top drummer in the idiom.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 05/26/1957

If Manne is not the greatest living drummer, then Roach is – depending on whether you adhere to the east or west coast school. Here (with Kenny Dorham, Ray Bryant, Sonny Rollins and George Morrow) he carries on the tradition he helped to found in the early days of bop.

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Down Beat : 05/30/1957
Don Gold : 4 stars

This is the first LP by the Roach quintet since the death of trumpeter Clifford Brown and pianist Richie Powell in an auto accident last June. Dorham, the 32-year-old Texan who has worked with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and Bryant, 25, the Philadelphia pianist, have replaced Brown and Powell.

The sensibly planned LP provides the group with five tunes for extended blowing; Free-Zee is a brief (two minute) twin-tracked exhibition by Roach on tympani and drums. George Russell‘s Ezz-Thetic is explored in a nine-minute performance, featuring Rollins’ uninhibited, free-flowing horn and some fine Dorham, a pulsating, dynamic Bryant solo, and a vivid solo by the incomparable leader.

Just One of Those Things is taken at a frenzied tempo, with Rollins galloping through a long series of two-bar breaks and a full, stimulating solo chorus. Mr. X is a rapid-tempo, minor-theme composition by Roach, which inspires a relentlessly driving solo by Rollins, a precise, technically fluent passage by Dorham, and a competent Bryant solo, before an exchange of fours winds it up.

Body and Soul is given a relaxed, delicate ballad treatment, with Rollins and Dorham sharing the theme-stating opening chorus. Bryant provides a lovely solo. Morrow’s opportunity to solo is marred somewhat by mike placement, which results in the inclusion of annoying extraneous sounds. Rollins, in a series of meaningful cadenzas, gift-wraps the ballad.

The 1943 Gillespie tune, Woodyn’ You, is a medium-tempo romp. Dorham solos with authority, and Rollins contributes a vigorous statement of ideas. There is a brief, tight ensemble sound that makes the group sound like a much larger one.

There is much of value here; Rollins’ virile, driving sound, full of top-level conception; Dorham’s sharply defined trumpet; Bryant’s genuinely maturing approach to the piano, and Roach’s ever-present taste, creativity, and drive.

Missing is the excitement of Clifford’s horn, the one element needed to give the group additional creative momentum. Dorham is more than merely competent, apart from comparison with Clifford, and could, however, become more of an inspirational factor within the group in time. It is a case of matching Rollins’ musical virility or being overpowered by it.

In any case, the Roach quintet is well worth hearing often.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

This is the first long-play Max Roach has made since death cast a gruesome shadow on his combo in the summer of 1956. The automobile accident that took the life of Clifford Brown, his brilliant young trumpeter partner, on June 26 last, also claimed the life of Richard Powell, pianist who had bene a key figure in the group as its chief arranger.

The twin blows were not easy to sustain either on musical or a personal level. After the initial shock had worn off, Max cast about him to find musicians who would tally with his conception of how the group around him should sound. We will not call them replacements, for nothing can ever replace a gap created by the tragedy that took these two promising talents from the scene.

Kenny Dorham, who plays trumpet on these sides, is one of the few musicians in contemporary jazz who could satisfy the exacting tastes of a Max Roach, or for that matter, of anyone who had spent every night for a couple of years listening to the creative soul of Clifford at work. McKinley Howard Dorham, born thirty-two years ago in Fairfield, Texas, has a career in jazz dating back to the Russell Jacquet band in Houston, with which he played in 1943.

Succeeding years aw him in the bands of the early bop pioneers, Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Eckstine, as well as with Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington. Then came two years with the Charlie Parker quintet, including a trip to Paris with Bird in 1949 for the Jazz Festival. During the past few years, he has worked mainly as a freelance jazzman around New York. Kenny’s style contains many of the elements that are rooted in Gillespie, with some of the dynamics of Miles Davis and a little of the fluent phrasing of Clifford also discernable.

In Richie’s chair is Raphael Homer Bryant, known outside the registrar’s office as Ray. A Philadelphian, born on Christmas Eve in 1931, he started as a bassist in junior high school. During the past five years he has been heard frequently at the Blue Note club in Philly, where he accompanied Bird, Miles and others of the jazz elite. Though his work shows a distinctly modern conception, he names Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson as his favorites.

Complete the group are Theodore “Sonny” Rollins, whose arrival in the Roach lineup a year ago gave the group a brilliant booting new front line sound; and George Washington Morrow, the bassist who now becomes solo remaining sideman of the original Roach unit (for comparison purposes, long-plays to be heard by earlier incarnations of the group can be found on MG 36005, Clifford Brown with Strings; MG 36008, Brown and Roach, Incorporated; MG 36036, Clifford Brown & Max Roach; MG 36037, Study in Brown and MG 36070, Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street).

After Ezz-thetic‘s 64-bar theme has been delineated by the two horns, the rest of this nine-minute performance is given to extensive workouts by tenor, trumpet and piano. Then Sonny and Kenny trade fours with Max and indulge in a little two-horn counterplay before the drums take over the spotlight entirely the last couple of minutes.

Dr. Free-Zee, a short and provocative two-minute item, is Max almost all the way. This is a twin-track recording in which Max is heard on tympani as well as drums; a unique performance that’s as dramatic as a blast from a shotgun.

Just One of Those Things subjects the Cole Porter standard to an unprecedentedly frantic tempo in an ad lib performance. The provocative second chorus devotes fifty-six of its sixty-four measures to a series of two-bar breaks by Rollins before he goes into a full solo chorus with the regularly-flowing rhythm accompaniment. Trumpet and piano solos follow, then a brief period of eight-bar trades (at this tempo. four would be over too soon) leads into another amazing percussionistic workout by Max.

Mr. X, a Roach original, is a minor theme, taken at a fast clip, though its 70-bars-a-minute pace seems funeral if the last item you listened to was Just One of those Things.

Body and Soul gives a slow and tender treatment to the Johnny Green standard, with Sonny and Kenny splitting the first chorus, Bryant and Morrow the second. Sonny goes out on this one with a series of startling cadenzas.

Woodyn’ You is the Dizzy Gillespie composition first introduced by Diz on a Coleman Hawkins date back in 1943. The pace is moderate here, affording Kenny, Sonny and Ray excellent opportunities for a couple of choruses apiece on the challenging changes; and of course Max is in there again for a phenomenal finale.