Another Saturday find.
In the 1990s electronic musicians Steve Roach and Robert Rich did a few albums together; they both work similar ground in EM so their collaborations went well.
However this album is not them. It’s two drummers from the ‘50s & ‘60s, Buddy Rich and Max Roach. Again, their big bands plied similar waters, big brassy high energy charts featuring a lot of percussion histrionics. I believe that this album (from 1959, the early days of stereo) is unique in the history of recording, in that Buddy and his band are in the left channel and Max and his band are in the right channel. They play together as one monster big band, with two drummers and two bassists. Actually I guess the bands are cut down a little to prevent overlap— there’s only one piano player, one trumpet, one alto and one tenor sax. Two trombonists.
The recording is not as bipolar as it might seem. Both bands played together (at the same time) in the studio, and there’s some ambient overlap. It’s really just one 10-piece band with the drums unusually panned hard left and hard right.
Interesting use of dual channel technology, and to my knowledge never repeated.
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