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Max Roach:

Three files here. The first is what Max plays on the head of the piece. He plays very be-boppy. Rather than straight-ahead swing time, he’s supporting the rhythmic figures in the melody. Joy Spring head transcription.

Transcription picks up in the 3rd-to-last chorus where Max trades fours with the band. Transcription: Max trades fours on Joy Spring

Finally, this transitions into the 2nd-to-last chorus: Transcription: Max solo on Joy Spring

Here’s the CD at Amazon.

So, what’s going on here? It’s August ‘54. Max is on the leading edge of a movement in drumming that is starting to take the simple phrases and one-bar figures that had been typical and enhancing them, tweaking them. For example, in bars 5-8 of his solo, he’s playing very simple figures. Two eighth notes with a flam at the beginning. What’s interesting is that he’s playing a single eighth note rest in between. So, he’s in 4/4 time, but he’s momentarily playing figures in 3/8. Clever. Similarly, in measure 12, he’s playing 8th-note triplets, but accenting every OTHER beat. This was pretty new stuff.

On a side note, less than two years later, Clifford Brown and Ritchie Powell (Bud’s younger brother), along with Ritchie’s wife Nancy would die in a car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Hard to say what Cliff and Max would have got up to if that hadn’t happened.