A Powerful Contemporary Reimagining of Max Roach’s Legacy – Music as Resistance, Resilience, and Collective Expression!!!
There are moments in the history of jazz when music becomes something considerably greater than an artistic statement. It becomes a declaration of identity, a reflection of collective experience, an expression of resistance, and an affirmation of the human spirit. It is within this profound tradition that drummer, composer, and visionary musical thinker Tyshawn Sorey presents Members… Don’t!, an extraordinary recording that reconnects the legacy of one of jazz’s most influential figures, Max Roach, with the realities, uncertainties, and emotional tensions of our contemporary world.
Released by Pi Recordings on May 29, 2026, Members… Don’t! is a bold and deeply considered reinterpretation of Roach’s landmark 1968 album Members, Don’t Git Weary. Yet the word reinterpretation hardly captures the artistic ambition of Sorey’s undertaking. This is not a conventional tribute, nor is it an exercise in preserving familiar arrangements. Instead, Sorey approaches the original compositions as living musical material, opening them to new dimensions of expression, extending their structural possibilities, and transforming their historical significance into an expansive contemporary statement.
The result is a magnificent musical undertaking: intellectually challenging, emotionally charged, rhythmically adventurous, and deeply conscious of the relationship between artistic freedom and social responsibility.
The historical connection is essential. Max Roach’s original Members, Don’t Git Weary emerged in 1968, a year marked by profound political upheaval, social unrest, and the struggle for civil rights. Roach understood jazz as a language capable of articulating experiences that extended far beyond the boundaries of entertainment. His music carried an unmistakable sense of dignity, determination, and collective consciousness.
Nearly six decades later, Sorey returns to that musical and philosophical territory, recognizing that the questions underlying Roach’s work have not disappeared. The historical circumstances have changed, but the need for solidarity, perseverance, justice, and human understanding remains.
Sorey does not attempt to reproduce the sound of 1968. He creates a new musical environment in which the spirit of that period can speak with renewed urgency. His arrangements enlarge the original material into an extended, interconnected suite, allowing the compositions to breathe, develop, collide, and eventually arrive at moments of extraordinary collective intensity.
This is music that requires patience and attentive listening. Its emotional rewards are inseparable from the journey itself.
The musical architecture: Tyshawn Sorey’s vision
Tyshawn Sorey is among the most remarkable and intellectually adventurous musicians of his generation. His artistic identity exists at the intersection of composition, improvisation, contemporary classical music, avant-garde exploration, and the deepest traditions of jazz.
As a drummer, he possesses an exceptional command of rhythmic possibility. His approach is not defined merely by speed, technical complexity, or spectacular physical energy. Rather, he treats rhythm as an expressive environment, capable of creating tension, suggesting movement, establishing silence, and changing the emotional temperature of an entire performance.
On Members… Don’t!, his drumming becomes the foundation of an elaborate musical architecture. He understands that the percussionist’s responsibility in an extended composition is not simply to maintain momentum. Sometimes the music requires propulsion; at other moments it needs restraint, spaciousness, uncertainty, or an almost orchestral sense of dramatic development. Sorey moves between these dimensions with remarkable sensitivity.
His arrangements are particularly important. Rather than presenting a succession of independent interpretations, he establishes a continuous musical narrative. Themes return in altered forms, instrumental voices enter into unexpected relationships, and individual passages acquire new significance through their position within the larger structure.
There is a sense of accumulated experience throughout the album, as though each composition contributes another chapter to a larger story.
Sorey’s understanding of the relationship between composed material and improvisation gives the music its distinctive character. The musicians are not imprisoned by the written arrangements, yet neither are they simply improvising without direction. Their freedom exists within a carefully conceived framework, one that encourages spontaneous interaction while maintaining the integrity of the overall composition. This balance is one of the album’s greatest achievements.
A remarkable ensemble of individual voices
The musicians assembled around Sorey bring together different generations, musical personalities, and approaches to improvisation. Each contributes something essential to the collective identity of the recording.
Adam O’Farrill – trumpet and electronics
Adam O’Farrill brings an imaginative and highly individual voice to the ensemble. His trumpet playing combines lyrical sensitivity with an adventurous contemporary vocabulary. He understands the expressive possibilities of space, color, articulation, and silence, and his musical personality is particularly suited to Sorey’s expansive arrangements.
His relationship with the electronics adds another dimension to the ensemble’s sonic vocabulary. These elements allow the music to move beyond conventional acoustic jazz textures, introducing additional shades of atmosphere and contemporary expression.
O’Farrill’s trumpet becomes an important voice within the ensemble’s changing emotional landscape, capable of asserting itself with intensity while also participating in more delicate and contemplative exchanges.
Mark Shim – tenor saxophone
Mark Shim contributes a distinctive tenor saxophone presence, bringing depth, warmth, and expressive determination to the musical conversation.
His instrument occupies an important position in the ensemble’s frontline. The relationship between tenor saxophone and trumpet provides a rich field of possibilities, from contrasting melodic statements to more closely intertwined passages.
Shim’s contribution is particularly valuable because the music demands an understanding of both tradition and freedom. The tenor saxophone can carry the historical weight of post-bop and modern jazz while simultaneously participating in an open-ended contemporary language. His musical presence helps establish the emotional and dramatic continuity of the suite.
Lex Korten – piano
Lex Korten provides one of the ensemble’s essential harmonic and melodic foundations. The piano is particularly important in Sorey’s musical architecture because it can function simultaneously as a source of harmonic definition, rhythmic suggestion, melodic development, and spontaneous commentary.
Korten’s role is not simply to accompany the horns. The piano participates in the composition’s larger structural conversation, helping establish the relationship between thematic material and improvisational freedom. His contribution is central to the ensemble’s ability to move between densely organized musical passages and more open, exploratory territories.
Tyrone Allen II – bass
Tyrone Allen II provides the music with its essential grounding and forward movement. In a project of this scale, the bassist’s role is especially demanding. The music requires a strong sense of pulse, but it also needs flexibility, responsiveness, and an understanding of the larger compositional form.
Allen’s bass establishes a connection between Sorey’s rhythmic imagination and the harmonic world created by Korten and the two horn players. The result is a rhythm section that functions as a living organism rather than a conventional accompaniment unit.
Fay Victor – vocals
The appearance of vocalist Fay Victor on the concluding title composition, “Members, Don’t Git Weary,” is one of the album’s most significant artistic decisions. Her presence introduces a different kind of expressive intensity. After the instrumental journey through the preceding compositions, the human voice brings the album’s central message into particularly direct focus.
Victor’s vocal contribution is not merely an additional color. It represents the arrival of the work’s emotional and philosophical destination.
The voice carries something that instrumental expression alone cannot communicate in quite the same way: the unmistakable presence of a human being addressing other human beings. Her performance brings the historical and spiritual dimensions of Max Roach’s original into the contemporary musical world, creating a powerful moment of collective affirmation.
Seven compositions, one unfolding musical narrative
The album consists of seven extended performances, with a total duration of approximately ninety-six minutes. Its sequence is carefully conceived, and the placement of the title composition at the very end is especially meaningful.
1. Abstrusions
The opening composition establishes the intellectual and musical atmosphere of the entire project. Written by Stanley Cowell, “Abstrusions” provides Sorey with an opportunity to introduce his approach to the original material. Rather than immediately announcing the full intensity of the ensemble, the music opens a space for exploration.
The interplay between piano and trumpet, supported by the rhythmic flexibility of the bass and drums, establishes a musical environment in which ideas can emerge gradually.
There is a fascinating relationship between structure and unpredictability. The composition provides a point of departure, while the musicians investigate its possibilities through individual interpretation and collective interaction. It is an invitation into a musical world that refuses to reveal everything at once.
2. Effi
Stanley Cowell’s “Effi” extends the album’s exploratory character into a considerably broader musical territory. Its eighteen-minute duration gives the ensemble room to develop ideas with patience, allowing the thematic material to become part of an evolving dramatic structure.
Sorey’s arrangement emphasizes the possibilities of extended form. Instead of treating improvisation as an isolated soloistic event, he incorporates it into the larger development of the composition.
The ensemble’s musical identities become increasingly interconnected. The trumpet and tenor saxophone contribute contrasting perspectives, the piano introduces harmonic possibilities, and the rhythm section maintains an atmosphere of constant responsiveness.
This is an example of jazz as collective thinking: several musicians developing one musical idea through different individual voices.
3. Absolutions
With “Absolutions,” composed by bassist Jymie Merritt, the album continues its exploration of the original musical world.
The title itself suggests questions of reflection, release, and transformation, ideas that resonate with the broader philosophical direction of the project.
Sorey’s arrangement gives the composition a place within the developing dramatic narrative. The ensemble moves through the material with a sense of purpose, allowing the original musical identity to coexist with new interpretative possibilities.
The bass assumes particular conceptual importance here, given Merritt’s historical contribution as a composer and bassist. Through this music, the legacy of the original creative community becomes part of the contemporary ensemble’s collective voice.
4. Equipoise (Part 1)
Stanley Cowell’s “Equipoise” is presented in two parts, an arrangement decision that reinforces the album’s larger architectural ambition.
The first part establishes a new stage in the musical journey. The idea of equipoise — balance, equilibrium, and the relationship between opposing forces — is particularly appropriate for an ensemble whose artistic language depends upon the interaction of discipline and freedom.
Sorey creates an environment in which musical tension and release become essential elements of the narrative. The musicians are encouraged to explore the spaces between contrasting ideas: stability and movement, precision and spontaneity, individual expression and collective responsibility.
5. Equipoise (Part 2)
The second part continues the development of Cowell’s composition, extending its possibilities and bringing the larger musical structure into sharper focus.
The division into two substantial sections gives the work a symphonic dimension. Themes and gestures acquire greater meaning through their return, transformation, and relationship to the surrounding material.
The ensemble’s interplay becomes part of an extended conversation in which no single instrument exists in isolation. Sorey’s drums are particularly important to this process. His rhythmic language can intensify the movement, create unexpected interruptions, or allow the music to settle into a more spacious atmosphere. The two parts of “Equipoise” form one of the album’s most substantial structural achievements.
6. Libra
Written by Gary Bartz, “Libra” brings another important compositional voice from the original album into Sorey’s contemporary vision. Its position immediately before the title composition is significant. The music becomes part of the transition toward the emotional culmination of the entire project.
The ensemble’s expressive vocabulary has by this point been established through the extended development of the preceding pieces. The accumulated musical energy gives “Libra” an important role in preparing the listener for what follows. There is a powerful sense of forward movement, of an ensemble gathering its collective strength before arriving at the final declaration.
7. Members, Don’t Git Weary
The concluding composition is the emotional and philosophical heart of the album. Max Roach’s original message of perseverance acquires renewed significance through Sorey’s arrangement and the participation of Fay Victor.
The decision to place this composition at the end rather than reproduce the original album’s sequence is central to the new work’s artistic identity. Sorey has described it as the apex of the project, the destination toward which everything else leads.
The preceding ninety minutes have prepared the ground. The musical ideas, the tensions, the improvisational exchanges, and the accumulated energy now find their collective destination. Fay Victor’s voice brings the message into direct human focus. The performance becomes more than an interpretation of a historical composition: it is an affirmation of endurance, dignity, and the necessity of continuing despite adversity.
There is something deeply moving about the way the album arrives at this moment. It does not offer an easy resolution or a comforting conclusion. Instead, it leaves the listener with a message of determination. The work is not finished. The struggle continues. The music must continue, too.
A dialogue between jazz history and the present
One of the most compelling aspects of Members… Don’t! is its understanding of jazz history as something alive. Max Roach was not simply an extraordinary drummer. He was a composer, bandleader, innovator, and artist whose work consistently challenged the boundaries between music and social consciousness. His original album belonged to a particular historical moment, but its message was never limited to that moment.
Sorey understands this distinction. He does not attempt to recreate the political and cultural circumstances of 1968. Instead, he recognizes the continuing relevance of the questions that informed Roach’s music.
This is why the album feels so contemporary. Its modernity does not depend upon fashionable production techniques or the pursuit of novelty. It emerges from the musicians’ willingness to reconsider the meaning of an established musical statement and to discover what it can communicate today.
There is also an important generational dimension. Sorey and his collaborators are not approaching the jazz tradition as something that must be preserved behind glass. They treat it as a continuing conversation between artists, experiences, and historical moments.
The music is respectful without becoming nostalgic, adventurous without abandoning its roots, and intellectually sophisticated without losing its emotional purpose.
An exceptional artistic statement
Members … Don’t! is a major achievement in Tyshawn Sorey’s continuing development as a composer, arranger, and bandleader.
It demonstrates an extraordinary understanding of extended musical form and the relationship between composition and improvisation. It also confirms his ability to assemble musicians whose individual artistic identities contribute to a unified and deeply expressive collective vision.
The album’s almost ninety-six-minute duration is not an indulgence. Its length is part of its artistic argument. Sorey asks the listener to enter the music, remain with it, experience its gradual transformations, and recognize the significance of its eventual destination.
This is an album that rewards concentration. It is music for listeners who appreciate the intellectual dimensions of jazz but also understand that its greatest achievements are often emotional, spiritual, and human.
The historical connection to Max Roach gives the project its foundation, but Sorey’s achievement belongs entirely to the present. His arrangements, his rhythmic imagination, and the remarkable contributions of Adam O’Farrill, Mark Shim, Lex Korten, Tyrone Allen II, and Fay Victor create an artistic statement with its own identity and significance. Ultimately, Members… Don’t! is about perseverance.
It is about the responsibility of musicians to remain engaged with the world around them. It is about the capacity of art to preserve memory while imagining new possibilities. And it is about the power of collective expression in a world that continues to demand courage, solidarity, and determination.
Jazz has always been capable of carrying such messages. In the hands of Tyshawn Sorey, that tradition receives a powerful contemporary voice. Members… Don’t! is not simply a conversation with the past. It is a declaration addressed to the present and the future.
A remarkable work of contemporary jazz, a deeply thoughtful reinterpretation of Max Roach’s legacy, and an album whose artistic and human significance extends far beyond its extraordinary musical dimensions.
Jazz as memory. Jazz as resistance. Jazz as collective strength. Jazz as the determination to carry on. And, above all, a reminder that we must not grow weary.
Album information: Members… Don’t! was released on May 29, 2026. The seven-track, 95:49-minute recording was captured live at New York’s Jazz Gallery on June 14, 2025. The arrangements draw on compositions by Stanley Cowell, Jymie Merritt, Gary Bartz, and Max Roach.
By Olivia Lomberd
