Max Roach - We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite (Candid Essentials Series) Vinyl LP

The American Candid label has achieved a near legendary status among the critics and the International jazz and blues public. The series was born in 1960 when Archie Bleyer, owner of the Cadence label decided to indulge his love of jazz and blues and create his own line — called Candid. Bleyer recruited Hentoff to produce the series.

A tour de force among the initial five reissues released for this series is drummer/writer Max Roach's We Insist! spotlighting tenor saxman Hawkins, Nigerian drummer Michael Olatunji, and Lincoln on vocals. The lunch-counter cover photo — reflecting the early-'60s sit-ins to protest segregated restaurants — captures the suite's intent: to present the Black experience from Africa to slavery in America to the present and onward with a look to Mother Africa. Set in 1863, "Freedom Day" refers to President Abe Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, whose centennial was approaching.

Throughout the suite's five tracks (including "Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace") Lincoln's arresting vocals extend to wordless vocalese as well as chanting African tribes' names in a duet with Olatunji, whose three drums include one carved from a tree trunk. Spontaneity was a key. Coleman's response to possibly editing out a squeak in his playing (back in the day of manual editing a session's magnetic tapes) was "No, don't splice. When it's all perfect, especially in a piece like this, there's something very wrong." Sixty-plus years after these sessions, their power is still overwhelming.

• Non-RSD, 180gm black vinyl.
• Remastered by Bernie Grundman From Original Master Tapes.
• Originally recorded Aug. 31 & Sept. 6, 1960 at Nola Penthouse Sound Studio in New York.
• Originally produced for Candid by A&R Director Nat Hentoff.
• In 2022, WE INSIST! was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the US National Recording Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."