Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes is a feature documentary on the iconic musical artist / drummer and pioneering social activist Max Roach, directed by Sam Pollard & Ben Shapiro. This “oustanding” doc World Premiered at SXSW in March and screens on American Masters PBS.  Glowing Reviews In! The film "builds into pulsating impressions that reflect its subject and an overall musicality". 

The score was composed and produced by Brooklyn Based  Christopher North, features original jazz tunes and percussion cues as underscore. This music was performed by a stellar quintet featuring bassist (& North's former student) Cole Davis, Aaron M. Johnson on Alto / Tenor Sax, Anthony Hervey on Trumpet, Lawrence Fields on Piano, Michael Ode on Drums, recorded at The Bunker Studio, as well as M’Boom inspired Percussion Cues multi-tracked by Andy Blanco. Add'l contributions by Rex Benincasa and Kate Amrine. Assisted by Landon Knoblock, Mixed by Erdem Helvacioglu.

“If you know people who play drums, want to play drums, or want to play drums better, “Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes” could effect a turning point in their lives.” Wall Street Journal October 6, 2023.

Experience the groundbreaking sounds of bebop pioneer and virtuoso composer Max Roach, whose far-reaching ambitions were inspired and challenged by the inequities of the society around him.

This is North’s 3rd collaboration with Lifetime Peabody & Multiple Emmy Award Winning, Multiple Grammy Nominated, and Oscar Nominated Sam Pollard, following the Grammy Nominated Best Music Film Blues/Civil Rights Doc Two Trains Runnin'.  

Update on Max's Birthday (Jan 10th) & Max@100 celebration: Sam & Ben talked about Max and the film on Radio Diaries (inc audio clips with CN cues)

"Who the heck am I to score this film, to put my music next to these giants, these greats musicians? And somehow I had to get through that, and just get to work and respond to it as a film." - CN

"I think the percussion ensemble, and particularly the percussion ensemble that Max Roach did, is a fantastic tool for underscoring. The challenge that I used for this film was that I needed it to work in a modular and an underscoring way such that I could take in and out layers based on dialogue. So that's what I did."

"One of the notes that I kept on getting is that my jazz writing tends to be quirkier and more angular like Monk, rather than the structure that Clifford Brown and Max Roach tunes tend to have. So that was a challenge."

"In M3, there's some holes in the head of the melody, so there's room for people to talk. This tune had to be written in a way so that the solos would land exactly with images on the screen."

"M5 was recorded with drums, but the drums were taken out for the actual film. If we'd recorded this in a normal way, it wouldn't have worked, because jazz would typically be recorded all in one room with bleedthrough, and we would have had to somehow remove the drums. But because we recorded it at Bunker with Isolated Instruments, it was easy just to mute the drums and the cue got approved this way."

"They're touring in this scene. They're going all over the world. And there's a little bit of a room for a laugh there. So M6 was written with underscoring in mind that the head would not get in the way of the talking heads and somehow feel like a Clifford Brown song. This piece of music is also used in the credits."

"This is M7, the one where Sonny Rollins is talking about weird, funky places. and he's not meaning in a musical way. He's meaning it in a dangerous way. He’s talking about being in places where he wasn't appreciated, hence its name, Playing for the People. It's kind of an impressionistic shot in the film, of a couple dancing in a smoky bar, and that certainly included the reason for bringing in a muted trumpet. Kind of antiphonal writing. You’ll see we're going back and forth between the saxophone and the kind of distant sounding trumpet that was intentional."

"This is M8, which is the wedding. This one had some overdubs. Aaron M. Johnson on tenor sax acting as bass line, then alto sax. I also had some piano flourishes that were added as an overdub. Happy times for Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach."

"M10, back to our percussion ensemble. Originally I had a glockenspiel on this, the highest of the percussion instruments, two octaves above where it's written. And the note I got was that the cue was too sweet. So all I had to do was take out the glockenspiel and it made the cut."

"Early on I had this idea that there might be some blending of lines, meaning I'm going to go from an underscoring thing to some kind of an atmospheric thing, because Max Roach, his past, was more violent, and troubled by his addictions. Automatically, I think I went towards the warm and fuzzy heart stuff that happens with his family, what happens with his students, the love that he felt. And then, of course, in the same room, his temper. That switch in part of the film is where you feel the fact that the guy had a really intense temper."

"10 A is a pretty special cue because it needed to sound more orchestral. In the film there's a shot of Max working with an orchestra and a choir. I included some choir sounds, as well as even a little bit of a clarinet, from a sample library made by New York Arts Program."

"M11 appears very briefly. I think it's literally just that one timpani hit or two, underscoring for Questlove talking about Max. They got the rights to Well You Needn’t, and used the M’Boom Footage elsewhere in the film."

"This is M12. In some ways, this might be one of the more special cues of the whole film. This is a solo piano, and what we're seeing is a shot of Max from a distance, playing a song that we didn't have the rights to. I wrote a composition that looked like Max's hands, that looked like something he would play, and I played it the way that he would play it. It acted as a set up to end the film. It’s special to me because most viewers are just thinking it's Max playing, not realizing that it's Lawrence’s nuanced beautiful playing."

"M13  is acting as some source music for Max's funeral. When I was talking about my idea for this cue, I should've just kept my mouth shut because it was approved. And then I said, oh yeah, it's kind of like a, you know, a group playing at his funeral. And the directors, clearly,  did not need all the subtext for that. So either way, it was approved. When in doubt, get it approved and just keep your mouth shut!"