The majority of the material here is by Max's long-standing quartet with Bridgewater, Pope and Hill (which also made one album for US release, Chattahoochee Red, but was far more assiduously documented in Europe). Roach's approaches largely stay faithful to the post-hardbop he had perfected by the early 1960s, and the post-Clifford Brown, post-Booker Little trumpeter Cecil B works well here, despite the acres of space he has to fill on a couple of live sets. Pope is perhaps less rewarding, despite being highly competent at both changes playing and freer noises. Two of the albums – all of LP length, by the way – have the addition of a string quartet (the Uptowns including Max's daughter Maxine on viola) and their backing material is interesting on ‘Bird Says’, a contrafact of ‘Confirmation’. The final set is a real curio, consisting entirely of Roach declaiming poems by Bruce Wright, over pre-recorded backgrounds (one section with contributions by Konitz and Tony Scott). There's some good drums here too, but Freedom Now! it isn't.