Yale University Bands Thomas C. Duffy, Director presents
Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band Celebrating Max Roach: Championing Equality and Social Justice Through Music Wayne Escoffery, Music Director Monday, March 6, 2024, at 7:30 p.m.
Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
Star Eyes
RAYE and DEPAUL arr. Slide Hampton adapted by Michael Philip Mossman*
Driva Man
MAX ROACH/OSCAR BROWN JR. arr. Michael Philip Mossman*
Freedom Day
MAX ROACH/OSCAR BROWN JR. arr. Michael Philip Mossman*
Eclipse
CHARLES MINGUS arr. Sy Johnson
In A Sentimental Mood DUKE ELLINGTON Miles Zaud – piano, Thara Joseph – bass, Christopher Palazzo – drums Yes or No
WAYNE SHORTER arr. Mike Tomaro
*M. Mossman’s arrangements commissioned with funds from the Robert Flanagan Yale Bands Commissioning Endowment
________________________________________________________________________________ American drummer and composer Max Roach (1924-2007) was fiercely committed to championing equality and social justice through music. Tonight’s program features two movements of his 1960 avant-garde jazz album and vocalinstrumental suite We Insist! (subtitled Freedom Now) on themes related to the Civil Rights Movement. Both movements were orchestrated and arranged specifically for the Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band by Michael Philip Mossman. Roach was a pioneer of bepop but worked in many other styles of music and with various musicians including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, and more. He was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1992.