It was a beautiful sunny day in New York City; we were crossing
Amsterdam Avenue on 96th street heading east to Columbus Avenue.
As we approached the newsstand on 96th street off Amsterdam, I
noticed something familiar, a stately elder gentlemen talking with the
newsstand attendant. As we got closer I recognized him and we walked
over to say hello. I called his name and he smiled as I reach to shake
his hand, then I looked at my son, and said, " Josh, this is Max Roach
the great jazz musician." Max smiled at Josh shook his hand and said
hello; Josh smiled and said hi.

Max joined us as we headed eastward towards Columbus, It struck
me, what a nice man he was, and I was also surprised to see how
much he had aged. We always see photographs of celebrities, and
their image and age stay fixed in our minds. I loved the music that he,
Clifford Brown and Sonny Rollins made together I actually got to see
him years earlier. It was June 5th 1991, at a benefit concert " The
Third Annual Evening with Friends of Charlie Parker," at the Village
Gate, Dizzy Gillespie was there. Max didn’t play he strolled in late in
the show looking cool, walked by the stage and sat down at a table
with a very beautiful companion, as Dizzy played.

As the three of us strolled along, I was trying to impress him with the
fact that I was a fan and with how little I knew about jazz. I was also
trying to press upon Josh the importance of understanding in whose
presence we both were in. Josh was not impressed, and to my
surprise neither was Max, the both were kind of ignoring me and
engaged in their own little world. Eventually, I would get it I was not
there to impress anyone or to get Josh to recognize the importance
of the great contribution this man made to music and society. I was
there to observe, record and cherish this historic moment in time, to
eventually share with Josh when he was old enough to understand,
perhaps while introducing him to some of Max’s and Clifford Brown’s
music. I can tell him the story about the day, when he was about
three-years-old in the spring of 1999, we met the great jazz legend
Max Roach at a newsstand in the neighborhood. And how the two
them, Max and Joshua Myles, held-hands, talked, laughed and played
together on West 94th street as we headed home.

© Richard K. Manigault 2006
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