Source: Los Angeles Times
As a child, Daryl Roach loved all the drama and commotion when his
family
headed south to his father's rural birthplace. Before they left New
York for
Dismal Swamp in North Carolina, they'd jam the Lincoln Continental full
of
food and push all the bags into the trunk, which was already half
filled by
a big red canister of gasoline.
Roach said he only realized years later why all the provisioning had
been
necessary.
His father, Max Roach, is a legendary jazz drummer who helped create
the
bebop style and played with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious
Monk, Clifford Brown and Miles Davis.
But driving through the rural South in the 1950s, Max Roach knew that
as a
black man he'd be denied service at many a gas station and restaurant.
Over the years, he became a civil rights activist, using his fame to
speak
out against racial injustice.
"I listened to a lot of ideas, a lot of revolutionary ideas," said
Daryl
Roach, now a 56-year-old actor living in Los Angeles.
Activism, it turns out, runs in the family.
On Monday night, Daryl Roach will hold the kickoff event of his new
nonprofit organization, Musicaids ... Life Thru Music. At a benefit
concert
at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, James Taylor will sing, along with
Brandi
Carlile, Deborah Falconer and Arnold McCuller. Saxophonist Brandon
Field
will also perform.
Tickets for the concert, which is called "Songs for a New Resolution,"
cost
$45 to $65. The event will raise money to help stop the spread of HIV
and
AIDS through education and research into preventive vaccines and
microbicides.
Roach got the idea for Musicaids through years of listening to his
close
friend Peter Anton, a gastroenterologist, UCLA professor and director
of the
UCLA Center for HIV and Digestive Diseases.
Anton, who is also a researcher at the UCLA AIDS Institute, would often
tell
Roach about new studies. The physician told of research finding that as
many
as one in three young black males in Los Angeles and other American
cities
were infected with HIV, that two American teenagers were infected each
half
hour.
Roach was shocked by what he heard about the increase in new infections
among black women and the particularly high rate of infection in young
black
men.
"I was alarmed at what he was telling me. I mean, there are studies
that
show that the rate of infection for young black men in South-Central
Los
Angeles is 30%," Roach said. "The only place with a higher rate is in
Botswana."
He wanted to do something.
He thought immediately of music, which was always a force for change in
his
family.
"One thing which always got us through was music. It was music which
got us
through family struggles, which got us through life," he said.
He also thought of his father, and asked him for his help.
Soon, as in the old days, the talk turned to civil rights.
Max Roach wanted to help, but at first he was worried. He didn't want
to
erode any civil rights gains by focusing attention on something
negative
within the black community.
His son recalls saying to his father, "If we don't address this problem
now,
over the next 10 years we're going to lose all the gains of civil
rights,
because we'll lose a generation."
The debate went back and forth. Finally, son convinced father of the
urgency.
Max Roach gave his son access to his extensive mailing list and signed
Musicaids' first letter soliciting donations. Family friends, including
Maya
Angelou, sent money.
Money raised by Musicaids for research will go to the UCLA AIDS
Institute.
Unlike government grant money, it won't be bogged down by seemingly
endless
restrictions. Researchers will be able to use it to pursue their best
ideas,
said Edwin Bayrd, the institute's executive director.
A vaccine to prevent HIV infection is still at least a decade away,
Bayrd
said, particularly because the virus constantly mutates, creating
numerous
different strains.
But the institute hopes to soon begin testing another kind of medicine
that
would slow the pace of infection in people who already have HIV, Anton
said.
Researchers are also testing microbicides -- gels or foams that could
be
applied to skin and that could block transmission of the virus before
it
reached the bloodstream, Bayrd said.
Safe, effective and inexpensive microbicides could be particularly
important
in preventing HIV's spread among women, since it would give them the
means
to protect themselves, he said.
Max Roach is 81 now. He suffers from hydrocephalus, which affects his
short-term memory and his balance. He lives in New York and won't be at
Monday's concert.
But Daryl Roach said he hoped the event would be one of many that would
honor his father's legacy. He wants to plan more concerts, featuring
gospel,
rhythm and blues, rap and jazz. He's hoping to sell concert CDs. He has
lots
of ideas.
"My father's life was always about deeds," he said. "The name of one of
his
albums was 'Deeds, Not Words.' And, really, that's what this is all
about."
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