Max Roach was a drummer, percussionist and composer. He was the first jazz musician to receive the MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant,’ in 1988. For the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation he composed, along with Oscar Brown, the ‘Freedom Now” Suite. The album cover of ‘We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite’ recalls the diner sit-ins of the sixties.

Eddie Kahn, bass; Clifford Jordan, saxophone; Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, piano. Abbey Lincoln sings ‘Freedom Day’ from the suite.