play a duet with the “I Have a Dream” speech and it was one of the most gorgeous, moving “multi-media” events I’ve ever experienced. It’s not hard to find the music in MLK’s oratory; but to accompany it, playing around, below and against it–that was amazing. People called Roach a “melodic” drummer but I think that’s wrong; he was more like a story weaver. His bebop solos would follow the form of the changes, like other soloists, but he laid his own contours over it, stitching together a statement that was somehow both flawless and ebullient. That style was way out of fashion by the time I was a young drummer in the early 80s. After checking out one of those long solos ending in a floor-tom roll, my teacher would say, “You like that stuff?” Oh, I did. R.I.P.