The O'Zone | We Insist! 1960/2025

In December 1960, Max Roach released one of the most singularly important record albums… not only in jazz, but in the fabric of American culture: We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite. 

Within the context of America in 1960, change was sweeping the nation, JFK was the new president, and the Civil Rights movement was making “good trouble” where it was needed the most. Rock & Roll was the popular music replacing jazz among young people, while Motown was endeavoring to reach across racial lines.

America was emerging from McCarthyism, lunch counters, fire hoses, and German shepherds, and inequalities were rampant and ubiquitous! To this, Max Roach and lyricist/ vocalist Oscar Brown and superstar vocalist/actress/fashion icon (before the term existed) Abbey Lincoln are standing fast in the face of freedom’s suppressors.

Sixty-five years after…why do it again? Is it necessary?

Now more than ever. Because it was so important before, it stands to logic that it is important again. Time to INSIST! We Insist 2025! is not just a matter of doing some covers or of writing some new arrangements. The original We Insist! stands as something beyond a collection of tunes. The German shepherds and firehoses have been replaced by more insidious devices: a systematic ongoing assault on allegedly “woke” institutions such as The Kennedy Center, Voice of America, The Smithsonian, The National Endowment for the Arts and ideals like gender and racial equality, or progressive changes towards economic equality. 

Ironically, as Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell began recording We Insist 2025!, the election was yet to happen, and there was optimism about the outcome. In an interview in DownBeat with John Murph, Carrington remarked, “Honestly, I was certain that (Harris) was going to win, I wasn’t thinking so much about the election when we were making this record. I thought the album was going to be a celebratory record.”

January 10, 2024, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of icon Max Roach. As the date approached, Carrington began to develop ideas on how to celebrate the centenary of someone she held in admiration and mentorship. At around the same time, Terri had begun a relationship with Candid Records, the label that Max Roach’s iconic recording appeared on. As much as she wanted the recording to coincide with Roach’s 100th, it didn’t happen; but Carrington never lost sight of her vision. In recent years, Candid has returned with reissues of its illustrious catalog and new recordings from vibraphonist Simon Moullier, trumpeter Milena Casado, multi-instrumentalists Zacchae’us Paul and Morgan Guerin, all of whom appear on We Insist 2025!

As it turns out, Carrington also serves as Candid’s A&R Consultant.

Meanwhile…

Recognized by the Library of Congress for preservation and listed in the United States National Recording Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”, the original We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite was one of the most essential jazz albums in history. Yet, it was not initially a commercial success and received mixed reviews from critics and listeners in 1960, many of whom called it too controversial, while others praised its enthusiastic and progressive concept. 

After its release, Roach vowed he would never again play music that wasn’t socially relevant.

He told DownBeat magazine, “We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we’re master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we’ve been through.” 

With We Insist!, Roach was in the vanguard of artists using jazz as a way of addressing racial, political and social issues in the 1960s. The personnel included Booker Little on trumpet, Coleman Hawkins on tenor, Walter Benton on tenor, and Julian Priester on trombone. Priester is the only musician to play on both albums, rendering heart-rending solos on both versions of “Tears for Johannesburg”. According to the new album’s liner notes, Terri Lyne Carrington lists Christie Dashiell as a co-author “because she possesses an amazing instrument, knows how to use it, and knows how to embody the messages and stories she tells with a warmth and soulfulness that is thoroughly inviting. Dashiell’s vocal artistry, with its velvety delivery and exquisite note choices, builds on ancestors and elders from Abbey Lincoln to Dianne Reeves.  

This recording is a response to “the freedom call” and a continuation of an ancestor’s ideals when sadly it’s time for more good trouble. A reminder to play “Alabama.” “Strange Fruit,” “Fables of Fabaus,” “Driva’man," “Freedom Day,” and “Mississippi Goddamn!” 

When there is oppression and injustice, words and music stand in the face of such evils.

WE INSIST!