Drummer Max Roach, New York City, c. 1950.
Courtesy of Herman Leonard Photography, LLC.
Born January 10, 1924, in New Land, NC
Died August 16, 2007, in New York City
“The American drummer,” Max Roach once said, “is a one-man percussion orchestra.” No one had a better right to make that claim –– and no one demonstrated the truth of it so consistently for so long — than Roach.
He was the most influential drummer of his generation. Before he was twenty, he had set the pace for what came to be called bebop: breaking up the time with snare- and bass-drum punctuation and providing a running polyrhythmic commentary on everything played by his great compatriots, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. And, more than any other drummer before him, he showed how the drum kit could be turned into a full-fledged melodic instrument.
From 1954 to 1956, Roach and the brilliant young trumpet player Clifford Brown led a quintet that epitomized hard bop. In the decades that followed Brown’s untimely death, Roach went on to compose many types of music and lead a host of different groups –– including an all-percussion orchestra called M’Boom and a double quartet with strings –– and to record with avant-garde artists less than half his age.
He was also deeply involved in the movement for civil rights. His 1960 album, “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite,” written with Oscar Brown, Jr. and featuring saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and singer Abbey Lincoln, sought to capture all of that struggle’s anguish and aspiration.
Listen to more music at NPR:
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1116082
