Max Roach
Encyclopedia
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz
percussionist, drummer
, and composer
.
A pioneer of bebop
, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Coleman Hawkins
, Dizzy Gillespie
, Charlie Parker
, Miles Davis
, Duke Ellington
, Thelonious Monk
, Charles Mingus
, Billy Eckstine
, Stan Getz
, Sonny Rollins
, Clifford Brown
, Eric Dolphy
and Booker Little
.
Roach also led his own groups, and made numerous musical statements relating to the civil rights movement
of African Americans.
, which borders the southern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp
, to Alphonse and Cressie Roach. Many confuse this with Newland Town in Avery County. Although Roach's birth certificate lists his date of birth as January 10, 1924, Roach has been quoted by Phil Schaap
as having stated that his family believed he was born on January 8, 1925. Roach's family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York
when he was 4 years old. He grew up in a musical home, his mother being a gospel
singer. He started to play bugle
in parade orchestras at a young age. At the age of 10, he was already playing drums in some gospel bands. As an eighteen year-old fresh out of Boys' High School in Brooklyn, (1942) he was called to fill in for Sonny Greer
, and play with the Duke Ellington Orchestra performing at the Paramount Theater.
In 1942, Roach started to go out in the jazz clubs of the 52nd Street
and at 78th Street & Broadway for Georgie Jay's Taproom (playing with schoolmate Cecil Payne
).
Roach's most significant innovations came in the 1940s, when he and jazz drummer Kenny Clarke
devised a new concept of musical time. By playing the beat-by-beat pulse of standard 4/4 time on the "ride" cymbal instead of on the thudding bass drum, Roach and Clarke developed a flexible, flowing rhythmic pattern that allowed soloists to play freely. The new approach also left space for the drummer to insert dramatic accents on the snare drum, "crash" cymbal
and other components of the trap set.
By matching his rhythmic attack with a tune's melody
, Roach brought a newfound subtlety of expression to his instrument. He often shifted the dynamic emphasis from one part of his drum kit to another within a single phrase, creating a sense of tonal color and rhythmic surprise. The idea was to shatter musical conventions and take full advantage of the drummer's unique position. "In no other society", Roach once observed, "do they have one person play with all four limbs."
While that approach is common today, when Clarke and Roach introduced the new style in the 1940s it was a revolutionary musical advance. "When Max Roach's first records with Charlie Parker were released by Savoy in 1945," jazz historian Burt Korall wrote in the Oxford Companion to Jazz, "drummers experienced awe and puzzlement and even fear." One of those awed drummers, Stan Levey
, summed up Roach's importance: "I came to realize that, because of him, drumming no longer was just time, it was music."
He was one of the first drummers (along with Kenny Clarke
) to play in the bebop
style, and performed in bands led by Dizzy Gillespie
, Charlie Parker
, Thelonious Monk
, Coleman Hawkins
, Bud Powell
, and Miles Davis
. Roach played on many of Parker's most important records, including the Savoy
November 1945 session, a turning point in recorded jazz.
from 1950–53, working toward a Bachelor of Music degree (the School was to award him an Honorary Doctorate in 1990).
In 1952, Roach co-founded Debut Records
with bassist Charles Mingus
. This label released a record of a May 15, 1953 concert, billed as 'the greatest concert ever', which came to be known as Jazz at Massey Hall
, featuring Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Mingus and Roach. Also released on this label was the groundbreaking bass-and-drum free improvisation, Percussion Discussion.
In 1954, he formed a quintet featuring trumpet
er Clifford Brown
, tenor saxophonist Harold Land
, pianist Richie Powell
(brother of Bud Powell
), and bassist George Morrow
, though Land left the following year and Sonny Rollins
soon replaced him. The group was a prime example of the hard bop
style also played by Art Blakey
and Horace Silver
. Tragically, this group was to be short-lived; Brown and Powell were killed in a car accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike
in June 1956. The first album Roach recorded after their deaths was Max Roach + 4. After Brown and Powell's deaths, Roach continued leading a similarly configured group, with Kenny Dorham
(and later the short-lived Booker Little
) on trumpet, George Coleman
on tenor and pianist Ray Bryant
. Roach expanded the standard form of hard-bop using 3/4 waltz
rhythms and modality in 1957 with his album Jazz in 3/4 time. During this period, Roach recorded a series of other albums for the EmArcy
label featuring the brothers Stanley
and Tommy Turrentine
.
In 1955, he was the drummer for vocalist Dinah Washington
at several live appearances and recordings. Appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival with her in 1958 which was filmed
and the 1954 live studio audience recording of Dinah Jams, considered to be one of the best and most overlooked vocal jazz albums of its genre.
suite with lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr., after being invited to contribute to commemorations of the hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln
's Emancipation Proclamation
. Using his musical abilities to comment on the African-American experience would be a significant part of his career. Unfortunately, Roach suffered from being blacklisted by the American recording industry for a period in the 1960s. Roach though did manage to record the Money Jungle
album with Mingus and Duke Ellington
in 1962. This is generally regarded as one of the very finest trio albums ever made.
In 1966, with his album Drums Unlimited (which includes several tracks that are entirely drums solos) he demonstrated that drums can be a solo instrument able to play theme, variations, rhythmically cohesive phrases. He described his approach to music as "the creation of organized sound."
During the 1970s, Roach formed a musical organization—"M'Boom
"—a percussion orchestra. Each member of this unit composed for it and performed on many percussion instruments. Personnel included Fred King, Joe Chambers
, Warren Smith
, Freddie Waits
, Roy Brooks
, Omar Clay, Ray Mantilla
, Francisco Mora, and Eli Fountain.
In the early 1980s, he began presenting entire concerts solo, proving that this multi-percussion instrument could fulfill the demands of solo performance and be entirely satisfying to an audience. He created memorable compositions in these solo concerts; a solo record was released by Bay State, a Japan
ese label, just about impossible to obtain. One of these solo concerts is available on video, which also includes a filming of a recording date for "Chattahoochee Red," featuring his working quartet, Odean Pope
, Cecil Bridgewater
and Calvin Hill
.
He embarked on a series of duet recordings. Departing from the style of presentation he was best known for, most of the music on these recordings is free improvisation, created with the avant-garde musicians Cecil Taylor
, Anthony Braxton
, Archie Shepp
, and Abdullah Ibrahim
. He created duets with other performers: a recorded duet with the oration by Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream"; a duet with video artist Kit Fitzgerald, who improvised video imagery while Roach spontaneously created the music; a classic duet with his life-long friend and associate Dizzy Gillespie
; a duet concert recording with Mal Waldron
.
He wrote music for theater, such as plays written by Sam Shepard
, presented at La Mama E.T.C.
in New York City
.
He found new contexts for presentation, creating unique musical ensembles. One of these groups was "The Double Quartet." It featured his regular performing quartet, with personnel as above, except Tyrone Brown replacing Hill; this quartet joined with "The Uptown String Quartet," led by his daughter Maxine Roach, featuring Diane Monroe, Lesa Terry and Eileen Folson
.
Another ensemble was the "So What Brass Quintet," a group comprising five brass instrumentalists and Roach, no chordal instrument, no bass player. Much of the performance consisted of drums and horn duets. The ensemble consisted of two trumpets, trombone, French horn and tuba. Musicians included Cecil Bridgewater, Frank Gordon, Eddie Henderson, Rod McGaha, Steve Turre
, Delfeayo Marsalis
, Robert Stewart, Tony Underwood, Marshall Sealy, Mark Taylor and Dennis Jeter.
Roach presented his music with orchestras and gospel
choruses. He performed a concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
. He wrote for and performed with the Walter White gospel choir and the John Motley Singers. Roach performed with dancers: the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
, the Dianne McIntyre Dance Company, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
.
Roach surprised his fans by performing in a hip hop
concert, featuring the artist-rapper Fab Five Freddy
and the New York
Break Dancers. He expressed the insight that there was a strong kinship between the outpouring of expression of these young black artists and the art he had pursued all his life.
Not content to expand on the musical territory he had already become known for, Roach spent the decades of the 1980s and 1990s continually finding new forms of musical expression
and presentation. Though he ventured into new territory during a lifetime of innovation, he kept his contact with his musical point of origin. He performed with the Beijing Trio, with pianist Jon Jang and erhu player Jeibing Chen. His last recording, Friendship, was with trumpet master Clark Terry
, the two long-standing friends in duet and quartet. His last performance was at the 50th anniversary celebration of the original Massey Hall concert, in Toronto, where he performed solo on the hi-hat.
In 1994, Roach also appeared on Rush
drummer
Neil Peart
's Burning For Buddy
performing "The Drum Also Waltzes", Part 1 and 2 on Volume 1
of the Volume 2 series during the 1994 All-Star recording sessions.
Max Roach died in the early morning on August 16, 2007 in Manhattan. He was survived by five children: sons Daryl and Raoul, and daughters Maxine, Ayo and Dara. Over 1,900 people attended his funeral at Riverside Church in Manhattan, New York City on August 24, 2007. Max Roach was interred at the Woodlawn Cemetery
, Bronx, NY.
In a funeral tribute to the Roach, then-Lieutenant Governor of New York
David Paterson
compared the musician's courage to that of Paul Robeson
, Harriet Tubman
and Malcolm X
, saying that "No one ever wrote a bad thing about Max Roach's music or his aura until 1960, when he and Charlie Mingus protested the practices of the Newport Jazz Festival
."
. He graduated in 1952. During the period 1962–1970, Roach was married to the singer Abbey Lincoln
, who had performed on several of Roach's albums. Twin daughters, Ayodele Nieyela and Dara Rashida, were later born to Roach and his third wife, Janus Adams Roach. He has four grandchildren, Kyle Maxwell Roach, Kadar Elijah Roach, Maxe Samiko Hinds and Skye Sophia Sheffield. Long involved in jazz education, in 1972 he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst
. In the early 2000s, Roach became less active from the onset of hydrocephalus
-related complications.
From the 1970s through the mid-1990s Roach taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
.
"genius" grant in 1988, cited as a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France (1989), twice awarded the French Grand Prix du Disque, elected to the International Percussive Art Society's Hall of Fame and the Downbeat Magazine Hall of Fame, awarded Harvard Jazz Master, celebrated by Aaron Davis Hall, given eight honorary doctorate degrees, including degrees awarded by Medgar Evers College
, CUNY, the University of Bologna, Italy and Columbia University. While spending the later years of his life at the Mill Basin Sunrise assisted living home, in Brooklyn, Max was honored with a proclamation honoring his musical achievements by Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz.
In 1986 the London borough of Lambeth
named a park in Brixton
after him. - Roach was able to officially open it when he visited the UK that year.
With Clifford Brown
With M'Boom
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
percussionist, drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
, and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
A pioneer of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Billy Eckstine
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
, Eric Dolphy
Eric Dolphy
Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...
and Booker Little
Booker Little
Booker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...
.
Roach also led his own groups, and made numerous musical statements relating to the civil rights movement
African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...
of African Americans.
Early life and career
Roach was born in the Township of Newland, Pasquotank County, North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, which borders the southern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp
Great Dismal Swamp
The Great Dismal Swamp is a marshy area on the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina in the United States. It is located in parts of southern Chesapeake and Suffolk in Virginia, as well as northern...
, to Alphonse and Cressie Roach. Many confuse this with Newland Town in Avery County. Although Roach's birth certificate lists his date of birth as January 10, 1924, Roach has been quoted by Phil Schaap
Phil Schaap
Phil Schaap is an American jazz disc jockey, historian, archivist and producer. He hosts a daily morning radio program on 89.9 FM New York, WKCR, the radio station of Columbia University, his alma mater, in New York City. The show, called Bird Flight, is broadcast from 8:20 am–9:30 am on weekdays...
as having stated that his family believed he was born on January 8, 1925. Roach's family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
when he was 4 years old. He grew up in a musical home, his mother being a gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
singer. He started to play bugle
Bugle (instrument)
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure, since the bugle has no other mechanism for controlling pitch. Consequently, the bugle is limited to notes within the harmonic series...
in parade orchestras at a young age. At the age of 10, he was already playing drums in some gospel bands. As an eighteen year-old fresh out of Boys' High School in Brooklyn, (1942) he was called to fill in for Sonny Greer
Sonny Greer
Sonny Greer was an American jazz drummer, best known for his work with Duke Ellington.Greer was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and played with Elmer Snowden's band and the Howard Theatre's orchestra in Washington, D.C. before joining Duke Ellington, who he met in 1919...
, and play with the Duke Ellington Orchestra performing at the Paramount Theater.
In 1942, Roach started to go out in the jazz clubs of the 52nd Street
52nd Street (Manhattan)
52nd Street is a long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan.-Jazz center:The blocks of 52nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue were renowned in the mid-20th century for the abundance of jazz clubs and lively street life...
and at 78th Street & Broadway for Georgie Jay's Taproom (playing with schoolmate Cecil Payne
Cecil Payne
Cecil Payne was a jazz baritone saxophonist born in Brooklyn, NY. Payne also played the alto saxophone and flute...
).
Roach's most significant innovations came in the 1940s, when he and jazz drummer Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
devised a new concept of musical time. By playing the beat-by-beat pulse of standard 4/4 time on the "ride" cymbal instead of on the thudding bass drum, Roach and Clarke developed a flexible, flowing rhythmic pattern that allowed soloists to play freely. The new approach also left space for the drummer to insert dramatic accents on the snare drum, "crash" cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
and other components of the trap set.
By matching his rhythmic attack with a tune's melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
, Roach brought a newfound subtlety of expression to his instrument. He often shifted the dynamic emphasis from one part of his drum kit to another within a single phrase, creating a sense of tonal color and rhythmic surprise. The idea was to shatter musical conventions and take full advantage of the drummer's unique position. "In no other society", Roach once observed, "do they have one person play with all four limbs."
While that approach is common today, when Clarke and Roach introduced the new style in the 1940s it was a revolutionary musical advance. "When Max Roach's first records with Charlie Parker were released by Savoy in 1945," jazz historian Burt Korall wrote in the Oxford Companion to Jazz, "drummers experienced awe and puzzlement and even fear." One of those awed drummers, Stan Levey
Stan Levey
Stan Levey was an American jazz drummer. Born in Philadelphia, Levey is considered one of the earliest bebop drummers, one of the very few white drummers involved in the formative years of bebop and accepted as one of bop's most important drummers, along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach...
, summed up Roach's importance: "I came to realize that, because of him, drumming no longer was just time, it was music."
He was one of the first drummers (along with Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
) to play in the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
style, and performed in bands led by Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
, and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. Roach played on many of Parker's most important records, including the Savoy
Savoy Records
Savoy Records is an American record label specializing in jazz, R&B and gospel. Starting in the mid 1940s, Savoy played an important part in popularizing bebop.Savoy Records is an American record label specializing in jazz, R&B and gospel. Starting in the mid 1940s, Savoy played an important part...
November 1945 session, a turning point in recorded jazz.
1950s
Roach studied classical percussion at the Manhattan School of MusicManhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
from 1950–53, working toward a Bachelor of Music degree (the School was to award him an Honorary Doctorate in 1990).
In 1952, Roach co-founded Debut Records
Debut Records
Debut Records was a United States jazz record label, which was founded in 1952 by bassist Charles Mingus, his then-wife Celia and drummer Max Roach.This short-lived label was an attempt to avoid the compromises of working for major companies...
with bassist Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
. This label released a record of a May 15, 1953 concert, billed as 'the greatest concert ever', which came to be known as Jazz at Massey Hall
Jazz at Massey Hall
Jazz at Massey Hall is a live jazz album featuring a performance by "The Quintet" given on 15 May 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto. The quintet was composed of several leading 'modern' players of the day: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach...
, featuring Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Mingus and Roach. Also released on this label was the groundbreaking bass-and-drum free improvisation, Percussion Discussion.
In 1954, he formed a quintet featuring trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
er Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
, tenor saxophonist Harold Land
Harold Land
Harold de Vance Land was an American hard bop and post-bop tenor saxophonist. Land developed his hard bop playing with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown band into a personal, modern style. His tone was strong and emotional, yet displayed a certain fragility that made him easy to...
, pianist Richie Powell
Richie Powell
Richie Powell was an American bebop jazz pianist.Powell was born into a musical family in New York City, and was the younger brother of Bud Powell...
(brother of Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
), and bassist George Morrow
George Morrow (bassist)
George Morrow was a jazz bassist.Although most closely associated with Max Roach and Clifford Brown, Morrow also appears on recordings by Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt....
, though Land left the following year and Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
soon replaced him. The group was a prime example of the hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
style also played by Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
and Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....
. Tragically, this group was to be short-lived; Brown and Powell were killed in a car accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike
Pennsylvania Turnpike
The Pennsylvania Turnpike is a toll highway system operated by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. The three sections of the turnpike system total . The main section extends from Ohio to New Jersey and is long...
in June 1956. The first album Roach recorded after their deaths was Max Roach + 4. After Brown and Powell's deaths, Roach continued leading a similarly configured group, with Kenny Dorham
Kenny Dorham
McKinley Howard Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did...
(and later the short-lived Booker Little
Booker Little
Booker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...
) on trumpet, George Coleman
George Coleman
George Edward Coleman is an American hard bop saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, known chiefly for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s.-Biography:...
on tenor and pianist Ray Bryant
Ray Bryant
Raphael Homer "Ray" Bryant was an American Jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ray Bryant began playing the piano at the age of six, also performing on bass in junior High School...
. Roach expanded the standard form of hard-bop using 3/4 waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
rhythms and modality in 1957 with his album Jazz in 3/4 time. During this period, Roach recorded a series of other albums for the EmArcy
EmArcy Records
EmArcy Records is a jazz record label founded in 1954 by Mercury Records, and today a European jazz label owned by Universal Music Group. The name is a phonetic spelling of "MRC", the initials for Mercury Record Company....
label featuring the brothers Stanley
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
and Tommy Turrentine
Tommy Turrentine
Thomas Walter Turrentine, Jr. was a swing and hard bop trumpeter of the 1940s to 1960s, the older brother of saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.-Biography:...
.
In 1955, he was the drummer for vocalist Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
at several live appearances and recordings. Appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival with her in 1958 which was filmed
Jazz on a Summer's Day
Jazz on a Summer's Day is a documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern and the film director Aram Avakian , who also edited the movie...
and the 1954 live studio audience recording of Dinah Jams, considered to be one of the best and most overlooked vocal jazz albums of its genre.
1960s-1970s
In 1960 he composed the We Insist! - Freedom NowWe Insist! - Freedom Now
We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite is a 1960 jazz album containing a suite which Max Roach and lyricist Oscar Brown had begun to develop in 1959 with a view to its performance in 1963 on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. The cover references the sit-in movement of the Civil...
suite with lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr., after being invited to contribute to commemorations of the hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
's Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
. Using his musical abilities to comment on the African-American experience would be a significant part of his career. Unfortunately, Roach suffered from being blacklisted by the American recording industry for a period in the 1960s. Roach though did manage to record the Money Jungle
Money Jungle
Money Jungle is a jazz album by Duke Ellington with Charles Mingus and Max Roach recorded on September 17, 1962 and released in February 1963 by United Artists Jazz....
album with Mingus and Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
in 1962. This is generally regarded as one of the very finest trio albums ever made.
In 1966, with his album Drums Unlimited (which includes several tracks that are entirely drums solos) he demonstrated that drums can be a solo instrument able to play theme, variations, rhythmically cohesive phrases. He described his approach to music as "the creation of organized sound."
During the 1970s, Roach formed a musical organization—"M'Boom
M'Boom
M'Boom was an American jazz percussion ensemble founded in 1970 and led by Max Roach. Although originally a sextet in 1970 over the years the group had as many as ten members in the ensemble but the core of Roy Brooks, Joe Chambers, Omar Clay, Max Roach, Warren Smith and Freddie Waits appear on...
"—a percussion orchestra. Each member of this unit composed for it and performed on many percussion instruments. Personnel included Fred King, Joe Chambers
Joe Chambers
Joe Chambers is an American jazz drummer, pianist, vibraphonist and composer. He attended the Philadelphia Conservatory for one year. In the 1960s and 70s Chambers gigged with many high-profile artists such as Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Lou Donaldson, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Giuffre...
, Warren Smith
Warren Smith
Warren Smith may refer to:*Warren Smith , golf professional, Cherry Hills Country Club*Warren Smith , American Rockabilly artist*Warren Smith , American jazz drummer...
, Freddie Waits
Freddie Waits
Freddie Douglas Waits was a hard bop and post-bop drummer.He was a member of Max Roach's M'Boom percussion orchestra....
, Roy Brooks
Roy Brooks
Roy Brooks was an American hard bop jazz drummer.-Biography:Brooks was born in Detroit and drummed since childhood. He was an outstanding varsity basketball player as a teenager and was offered a scholarship to the Detroit Institute of Technology; he attended the school for three semesters and...
, Omar Clay, Ray Mantilla
Ray Mantilla
Raymond Mantilla is an American jazz drummer. He has played as a session musician and toured with some of the most significant jazz musicians of his time...
, Francisco Mora, and Eli Fountain.
1980s-1990s
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese label, just about impossible to obtain. One of these solo concerts is available on video, which also includes a filming of a recording date for "Chattahoochee Red," featuring his working quartet, Odean Pope
Odean Pope
Odean Pope is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Pope was raised in Philadelphia, where he learned from Ray Bryant while young...
, Cecil Bridgewater
Cecil Bridgewater
-Biography:Bridgewater was born in Urbana, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois. He and brother Ron formed the Bridgewater Brothers Band in 1969, and in the 1970s he was married to Dee Dee Bridgewater. In 1970 he played with Horace Silver, and following this with Thad Jones and Mel...
and Calvin Hill
Calvin Hill
Calvin G. Hill is a retired American football running back who had a 12-year NFL career from 1969 to 1981. He played for the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns...
.
He embarked on a series of duet recordings. Departing from the style of presentation he was best known for, most of the music on these recordings is free improvisation, created with the avant-garde musicians Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
, Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
, Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
, and Abdullah Ibrahim
Abdullah Ibrahim
Abdullah Ibrahim , born Adolph Johannes Brand, 9 October 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa, and formerly known as Dollar Brand, is a South African pianist and composer...
. He created duets with other performers: a recorded duet with the oration by Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream"; a duet with video artist Kit Fitzgerald, who improvised video imagery while Roach spontaneously created the music; a classic duet with his life-long friend and associate Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
; a duet concert recording with Mal Waldron
Mal Waldron
Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
.
He wrote music for theater, such as plays written by Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
, presented at La Mama E.T.C.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
He found new contexts for presentation, creating unique musical ensembles. One of these groups was "The Double Quartet." It featured his regular performing quartet, with personnel as above, except Tyrone Brown replacing Hill; this quartet joined with "The Uptown String Quartet," led by his daughter Maxine Roach, featuring Diane Monroe, Lesa Terry and Eileen Folson
Eileen Folson
Eileen M Folson was a Broadway composer, professional cellist and a Grammy nominee. She died on February 4, 2007.-Early life:Eileen was born in 1956 as the fourth of six children. On a whim in junior high school, Eileen and a friend auditioned for the orchestra. Eileen really wanted the bass but...
.
Another ensemble was the "So What Brass Quintet," a group comprising five brass instrumentalists and Roach, no chordal instrument, no bass player. Much of the performance consisted of drums and horn duets. The ensemble consisted of two trumpets, trombone, French horn and tuba. Musicians included Cecil Bridgewater, Frank Gordon, Eddie Henderson, Rod McGaha, Steve Turre
Steve Turre
Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....
, Delfeayo Marsalis
Delfeayo Marsalis
Delfeayo Marsalis is an American jazz trombonist and record producer.He is a member of the Marsalis family of jazz musicians: father Ellis Marsalis, Jr. , and brothers Branford Marsalis , Wynton Marsalis , and Jason Marsalis...
, Robert Stewart, Tony Underwood, Marshall Sealy, Mark Taylor and Dennis Jeter.
Roach presented his music with orchestras and gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
choruses. He performed a concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
. He wrote for and performed with the Walter White gospel choir and the John Motley Singers. Roach performed with dancers: the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is a modern dance company based in New York, New York. It was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey...
, the Dianne McIntyre Dance Company, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is an American dance company based out of Harlem in New York City. Founded in 1983 by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, the company made its debut performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the world premiere of Intuitive Momentum with lauded drummer...
.
Roach surprised his fans by performing in a hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
concert, featuring the artist-rapper Fab Five Freddy
Fab Five Freddy
Fred Brathwaite , more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American Hip hop historian, Hip hop pioneer and former graffiti artist...
and the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
Break Dancers. He expressed the insight that there was a strong kinship between the outpouring of expression of these young black artists and the art he had pursued all his life.
Not content to expand on the musical territory he had already become known for, Roach spent the decades of the 1980s and 1990s continually finding new forms of musical expression
New Interfaces for Musical Expression
New Interfaces for Musical Expression, also known as NIME, is an international conference dedicated to scientific research on the development of new technologies for musical expression and artistic performance...
and presentation. Though he ventured into new territory during a lifetime of innovation, he kept his contact with his musical point of origin. He performed with the Beijing Trio, with pianist Jon Jang and erhu player Jeibing Chen. His last recording, Friendship, was with trumpet master Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
, the two long-standing friends in duet and quartet. His last performance was at the 50th anniversary celebration of the original Massey Hall concert, in Toronto, where he performed solo on the hi-hat.
In 1994, Roach also appeared on Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Neil Peart
Neil Peart
Neil Ellwood Peart , OC, is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer for the rock band Rush.Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario . During adolescence, he floated from regional band to regional band in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer...
's Burning For Buddy
Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich
Burning for Buddy, Volume 1 is a 1994 Buddy Rich tribute album produced by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart. The album is composed of performances by various rock and jazz drummers, all accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band...
performing "The Drum Also Waltzes", Part 1 and 2 on Volume 1
Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich
Burning for Buddy, Volume 1 is a 1994 Buddy Rich tribute album produced by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart. The album is composed of performances by various rock and jazz drummers, all accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band...
of the Volume 2 series during the 1994 All-Star recording sessions.
Death
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863, in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.The cemetery covers more...
, Bronx, NY.
In a funeral tribute to the Roach, then-Lieutenant Governor of New York
Lieutenant Governor of New York
The Lieutenant Governor of New York is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the government of New York State. It is the second highest ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governor is elected on a ticket with the governor for a four year term...
David Paterson
David Paterson
David Alexander Paterson is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of New York, from 2008 to 2010. During his tenure he was the first governor of New York of African American heritage and also the second legally blind governor of any U.S. state after Bob C. Riley, who was Acting...
compared the musician's courage to that of Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
and Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, saying that "No one ever wrote a bad thing about Max Roach's music or his aura until 1960, when he and Charlie Mingus protested the practices of the Newport Jazz Festival
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the...
."
Personal life
Two children, son Daryl Keith and daughter Maxine, were born from his first marriage with Mildred Roach. In 1956 he met singer Barbara Jai (Johnson) and had another son, Raoul Jordu. He continued to play as a freelance while studying composition at the Manhattan School of MusicManhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
. He graduated in 1952. During the period 1962–1970, Roach was married to the singer Abbey Lincoln
Abbey Lincoln
Anna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...
, who had performed on several of Roach's albums. Twin daughters, Ayodele Nieyela and Dara Rashida, were later born to Roach and his third wife, Janus Adams Roach. He has four grandchildren, Kyle Maxwell Roach, Kadar Elijah Roach, Maxe Samiko Hinds and Skye Sophia Sheffield. Long involved in jazz education, in 1972 he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
at Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
. In the early 2000s, Roach became less active from the onset of hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus , also known as "water in the brain," is a medical condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles, or cavities, of the brain. This may cause increased intracranial pressure inside the skull and progressive enlargement of the head,...
-related complications.
From the 1970s through the mid-1990s Roach taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...
.
Honors
He was given a MacArthur FoundationMacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...
"genius" grant in 1988, cited as a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France (1989), twice awarded the French Grand Prix du Disque, elected to the International Percussive Art Society's Hall of Fame and the Downbeat Magazine Hall of Fame, awarded Harvard Jazz Master, celebrated by Aaron Davis Hall, given eight honorary doctorate degrees, including degrees awarded by Medgar Evers College
Medgar Evers College
Medgar Evers College is a senior college of The City University of New York.Medgar Evers College was officially established in 1970 through cooperation from educators and community leaders in central Brooklyn...
, CUNY, the University of Bologna, Italy and Columbia University. While spending the later years of his life at the Mill Basin Sunrise assisted living home, in Brooklyn, Max was honored with a proclamation honoring his musical achievements by Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz.
In 1986 the London borough of Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
named a park in Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
after him. - Roach was able to officially open it when he visited the UK that year.
As leader
- 1953 : Max Roach Quartet (Fantasy)
- 1953 : Max Roach and his Sextet (Debut)
- 1953 : Max Roach Quartet featuring Hank Mobley (Debut)
- 1956 : Max Roach + 4 (EmArcy)
- 1957 : Jazz in ¾ Time
- 1958 : Max Roach/Art Blakey (with Art BlakeyArt BlakeyArthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
) - 1958 : Max Roach Plus Four on the Chicago Scene (Mercury)
- 1958 : Max Roach Plus Four at Newport (Mercury)
- 1958 : Max Roach with the Boston Percussion Ensemble (EmArcy)
- 1958 : Deeds not Words (aka Conversation) (Riverside)
- 1958 : Max Roach/Bud Shank - Sessions (with Bud ShankBud ShankClifford Everett "Bud" Shank, Jr. was an American alto saxophonist and flautist. He rose to prominence in the early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra and throughout the decade worked in various small jazz combos. He spent the 1960s as a first...
) - 1958 : The Defiant OnesBooker Little 4 and Max RoachBooker Little 4 and Max Roach is an album by American jazz trumpeter Booker Little featuring performances recorded in 1958 for the United Artists label.-Reception:...
(with Booker LittleBooker LittleBooker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...
) - 1958 : Deeds, Not Words (with all new cast Ray Draper, Booker Little, George Coleman)
- 1959 : Rich Versus RoachRich Versus RoachRich versus Roach is a 1959 studio album by drummers Buddy Rich and Max Roach with their respective bands of the time.-Track listing:LP side A#"Sing, Sing, Sing " – 4:06#"The Casbah" – 4:25...
(with Buddy RichBuddy RichBernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...
) - 1961 : Percussion Bitter SweetPercussion Bitter SweetPercussion Bitter Sweet is an album by jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1961, released on Impulse! Records.-Track listing:All compositions by Max Roach, except where noted#"Garvey's Ghost" - 7:53#"Mama" - 4:50#"Tender Warriors" - 6:52...
(Impulse! RecordsImpulse! RecordsImpulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City...
)(with Mal WaldronMal WaldronMalcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
) - 1962 : Speak, Brother, Speak!
- 1962 : It's TimeIt's Time (Max Roach album)It's Time is a 1962 album by jazz drummer Max Roach, released on Impulse! Records and features trumpeter Richard Williams, tenor-saxophonist Clifford Jordan, trombonist Julian Priester, pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Art Davis, and a vocal choir conducted by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson...
(Impulse! RecordsImpulse! RecordsImpulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City...
)(with Mal WaldronMal WaldronMalcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
) - 1964 : Live in Europe: Freedom Now Suite (with Abbey LincolnAbbey LincolnAnna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...
) - 1964 : The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan (with Hasaan ibn Ali)
- 1966 : Drums Unlimited (Atlantic) (Leader, with James Spaulding, Freddie HubbardFreddie HubbardFrederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
, Ronnie MathewsRonnie MathewsRonnie Mathews was a jazz pianist primarily known for his work with other musicians, including Max Roach from 1963 to 1968 and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He acted as lead in recording from 1963 and 1978 - 1979...
, Jymie MerrittJymie MerrittJymie Merritt is an American jazz double-bassist.-Biography:Raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he has worked in jazz, rhythm and blues, and blues. He has worked with Bull Moose Jackson, B. B...
, Roland AlexanderRoland AlexanderRoland Alexander was an American post-bop jazz musician from Boston, Massachusetts.Alexander played tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, and piano. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Boston Conservatory and then moved to New York City in 1958...
) - 1968 : Sound as Roach (Atlantic)
- 1968 : Members, Don't Git Weary (Atlantic)
- 1971 : Lift Every Voice and Sing (with J.C. White Singers)
- 1976 : Force: Sweet Mao-Suid Afrika '76 (duo with Archie SheppArchie SheppArchie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
) - 1976 : Nommo (Victor)
- 1977 : Max Roach Quartet Live in Tokyo (Denon)
- 1977 : The Loudstar (Horo)
- 1977 : Max Roach Quartet Live In Amsterdam - It's Time (Baystate)
- 1977 : Solos (Baystate)
- 1977 : Streams of Consciousness - duo with Dollar BrandAbdullah IbrahimAbdullah Ibrahim , born Adolph Johannes Brand, 9 October 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa, and formerly known as Dollar Brand, is a South African pianist and composer...
- 1978 : Confirmation (Fluid RecordsFluid RecordsFluid Records was a jazz record label who released only 4 albums, although each featuring legendary figures of the genre. Paragon features Dave Holland and Barry Altschul, A Touch Of The Blues features Clifford Jarvis and Cameron Brown, Confirmation features Cecil Bridgewater, Billy Harper, and...
) - 1978 : Birth and RebirthBirth and Rebirth-Track listing:# "Birth" - 9:40# "Magic and Music" - 6:36# "Tropical Forest" - 5:05# "Dance Griot" - 5:06# "Spirit Possession" - 6:44# "Soft Shoe" - 2:57# "Rebirth" - 7:16*Recorded at Ricordi Studios in Milano, Italy on September 7, 1978-Personnel:...
- duo with Anthony BraxtonAnthony BraxtonAnthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
(Black Saint) - 1979 : The Long MarchThe Long March (album)-Track listing:# "J.C. Moses" - 5:52# "Sophisticated Lady" - 5:46# "The Long March" - 26:17# "U-Jaa-Maa" - 12:30# "Triptych" - 7:26# "Giant Steps" - 5:35...
- duo with Archie SheppArchie SheppArchie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
(Hathut) - 1979 : Historic ConcertsHistoric ConcertsHistoric Concerts is a live album by Cecil Taylor and Max Roach recorded at the McMillin Theatre, Columbia University, NYC on December 15, 1979 and released on the Soul Note label...
- duo with Cecil TaylorCecil TaylorCecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
(Black Saint) - 1979 : One in Two - Two in OneOne in Two - Two in One-Track listing:# "One in Two - Two in One Part 1" - 35:28# "One in Two - Two in One Part 2" - 39:30*Recorded at the Jazz Festival Willisau '79 in Willisau, Switzerland on August 31, 1979-Personnel:...
- duo with Anthony BraxtonAnthony BraxtonAnthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
(Hathut) - 1979 : Pictures in a FramePictures in a FramePictures in a Frame is an album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1979 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars stating "Although the group would continue to grow and evolve, it was already a pretty impressive unit by 1979...
(Soul Note) - 1980 : Chattahoochee Red (Columbia)
- 1982 : Swish - duo with Connie CrothersConnie CrothersConnie Crothers is a jazz pianist. She majored in music at the University of California, Berkeley before becoming a student of Lennie Tristano. After his death she became President of the Lennie Tristano Jazz Foundation...
(New Artists) - 1982 : In the Light (Soul Note)
- 1983 : Live at VielharmonieLive at VielharmonieLive at Vielharmonie is a live album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1983 in Munich for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review awarded the album 2½ stars.-Track listing:# "A Little Booker" - 20:28...
(Soul Note) - 1984 : Scott FreeScott Free (album)Scott Free is an album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1984 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 3½ stars stating "This is excellent music, easily recommended as an example of the underrated but consistently brilliant Max...
(Soul Note) - 1984 : It's Christmas AgainIt's Christmas AgainIt's Christmas Again is an album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1984 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 2½ stars stating "It's Christmas Again is a project that for many did not work, but no matter how you slice it, an...
(Soul Note) - 1984 : SurvivorsSurvivors (Max Roach album)Survivors is an album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1984 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Ron Wynn awarded the album 3 stars stating "this serves as a powerful reminder of why Roach's drumming was so strong and visceral even in his older years, and...
(Soul Note) - 1985 : Easy WinnersEasy Winners (album)Easy Winners is an album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1985 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4½ stars stating "The wide variety of colors and the consistently-strong improvisations make this a highly recommended set of...
(Soul Note) - 1986 : Bright MomentsBright Moments (Max Roach album)Bright Moments is an album by American jazz drummer Max Roach recorded in 1986 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4½ stars calling it "A frequently exquisite yet adventurous album, highly recommended".-Track listing:# "Bright Moments" -...
(Soul Note) - 1989 : Max + Dizzy: Paris 1989 - duo with Dizzy GillespieDizzy GillespieJohn Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
(A&M) - 1989 : Homage to Charlie Parker (A&M)
- 1991 : To the Max! (Enja)
- 1995 : Max Roach With The New Orchestra Of Boston And The So What Brass Quintet (Blue Note)
- 1999 : Beijing Trio (Asian Improv)
- 2002 : Friendship - with Clark TerryClark TerryClark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
) (Columbia)
With Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
- 1954 : Brown And Roach Incorporated
- 1954 : Clifford Brown and Max RoachClifford Brown & Max RoachClifford Brown & Max Roach is a 1955 album by influential jazz musicians Clifford Brown and Max Roach as part of the Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet, described by The New York Times as "perhaps the definitive bop group until Mr. Brown's fatal automobile accident in 1956"...
- 1954 : Study in BrownStudy in BrownStudy in Brown is a Clifford Brown and Max Roach album. The album consists predominantly of originals by members of the band. The songs "Lands End," by tenor saxophonist Harold Land, and "Sandu", by Brown, have gone on to become jazz standards...
- 1954 : More Study in Brown
- 1955 : Clifford Brown with Strings
- 1956 : Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street
- 1957 : Clifford Brown with Strings
- 1979 : Live at the Bee Hive (Columbia Records)
With M'Boom
M'Boom
M'Boom was an American jazz percussion ensemble founded in 1970 and led by Max Roach. Although originally a sextet in 1970 over the years the group had as many as ten members in the ensemble but the core of Roy Brooks, Joe Chambers, Omar Clay, Max Roach, Warren Smith and Freddie Waits appear on...
- 1973 : Re: PercussionRe: PercussionRe: Percussion is the debut album by American jazz percussion ensemble M'Boom recorded in 1973 for the Strata-East label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Michael G...
(Strata-East Records) - 1979 : M'BoomM'Boom (album)M'Boom is an album by American jazz percussion ensemble M'Boom led by Max Roach recorded in 1979 for the Columbia label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4½ stars stating "This is a particularly colorful set that is easily recommended not only to jazz and percussion...
(Columbia) - 1984 : CollageCollage (M'Boom album)Collage is an album by American jazz percussion ensemble M'Boom led by Max Roach recorded in 1984 for the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:...
(Soul Note) - 1992 : Live at S.O.B.'s New York (Blue Moon Records)
As sideman
- 1944 : Rainbow Mist (with Coleman HawkinsColeman HawkinsColeman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
) - 1944 : Coleman Hawkins and His All Stars (with Coleman HawkinsColeman HawkinsColeman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
) - 1945 : Town Hall, New York, June 22, 1945 (with Dizzy GillespieDizzy GillespieJohn Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1945 - 1948: The Complete Savoy Studio Recordings (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1946 : Mad Be Bop (with J.J. JohnsonJ.J. JohnsonJ. J. Johnson was a United States jazz trombonist, composer and arranger. He was sometimes credited as Jay Jay Johnson....
) - 1946 : Opus BeBop (with Stan GetzStan GetzStanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
) - 1946 : Savoy Jam Party (Don ByasDon ByasCarlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
Quartet) - 1946 : The Hawk Flies (with Coleman HawkinsColeman HawkinsColeman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
) - 1947 : The Bud Powell Trip (with Bud PowellBud PowellEarl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
) - 1947 : Lullaby in Rhythm (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1947 : Charlie Parker on DialCharlie Parker on DialCharlie Parker on Dial: The Complete Sessions is a 1993 four-disc box set collecting jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker's 1940s recordings for Dial Records...
(with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1948 : The Band that Never Was (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1948 : Bird on 52nd Street (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1948 : Bird at the Roost (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1949 : Birth of the CoolBirth of the CoolBirth of the Cool is a compilation album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1957 on Capitol Records. It compiles twelve songs recorded by Davis's nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950...
(with Miles DavisMiles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
) - 1949 - 1953: Charlie Parker – Complete Sessions on Verve (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1949 : Charlie Parker in France (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1949 : Genesis (with Sonny StittSonny StittEdward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
) - 1949 : The Stars of Modern Jazz at Carnegie Hall
- 1950 : The McGhee-Navarro Sextet (with Howard McGheeHoward McGheeHoward McGhee was one of the very first bebop jazz trumpeters, together with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Idrees Sulieman. He was known for lightning-fast fingers and very high notes...
) - 1951 : The Amazing Bud Powell (with Bud PowellBud PowellEarl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
) - 1951 : The George Wallington Trip and Septet (with George WallingtonGeorge WallingtonGeorge Wallington was a highly regarded American bop pianist and composer....
) - 1951 : ConceptionConception (album)Conception is a compilation album issued in 1951 as PRLP 7013, featuring Miles Davis on a number of tracks. The album features other notable musicians such as Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan and Zoot Sims. All the pieces were recorded at the famous Van Gelder Studio...
(with Miles DavisMiles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
) - 1952 : New Faces, New Sounds (with Gil MelleGil MelleGil Mellé was an American artist, jazz musician and film composer.In the 1950s, Mellé's paintings and sculptures were shown in New York galleries and he created the cover art for albums by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins...
) - 1952 : The Complete Genius (with Thelonious MonkThelonious MonkThelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
) - 1952 : Live at Rockland Palace (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1953 : The Metronome All Starss. MGM (with Billy EckstineBilly EckstineWilliam Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
) - 1953 : Mambo Jazz (with Joe HolidayJoe HolidayJoseph Befumo, better known as Joe Holiday , is an American jazz saxophonist born in Sicily.His father played clarinet, and the family moved to New York City when he was less than one year old...
) - 1953 : Yardbird: DC-53 (with Charlie ParkerCharlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
) - 1953 : Cohn's Tones (with Al CohnAl CohnAl Cohn was an American jazz saxophonist and arranger and composer.-Biography:Alvin Gilbert Cohn was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was initially known in the 1940s for playing in Woody Herman's Second Herd as one of the Four Brothers, along with Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Serge Chaloff...
) - 1953 : Diz and Getz (with Dizzy GillespieDizzy GillespieJohn Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Stan GetzStan GetzStanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
) - 1954 : DaahoudDaahoudDaahoud is an album by Max Roach and Clifford Brown, released on Mainstream Records in 1954.-Track listing:#"Daahoud"#"I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You"#"Joy Spring"#"I Get a Kick out of You"#"These Foolish Things "...
(Mainstream RecordsMainstream RecordsMainstream Records was an American record label, which released jazz, rock music, and soundtracks during the 1970s.It was founded in 1964 by Bob Shad, and in its early history reissued material from Commodore Records and Time Records in addition to some new jazz material...
) - 1954 : Dinah Jams Featuring Dinah Washington
- 1955 : Relaxed Piano Moods (with Hazel ScottHazel ScottHazel Dorothy Scott was an internationally known, American jazz and classical pianist and singer.-Early years and education:...
) - 1955 : Introducing Jimmy Cleveland And His All Stars (EmArcy)
- 1955 : New Piano Expressions (with John DennisJohn DennisJohn Dennis was an English critic and dramatist.-Life:He was born in Harrow, London. He was educated at Harrow School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1679. In the next year he was fined and dismissed from his college for having wounded a fellow-student with a sword....
) - 1955 : Herbie Nichols Trio (with Herbie NicholsHerbie NicholsHerbie Nichols , was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote the jazz standard "Lady Sings the Blues". Obscure during his lifetime, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.-Life:...
) - 1955 : Work TimeWork Time-Track listing:# "There's No Business Like Show Business" - 6:18# "Paradox" - 4:59# "Raincheck" - 6:01# "There Are Such Things" -Track listing:# "There's No Business Like Show Business" (Irving Berlin) - 6:18# "Paradox" - 4:59# "Raincheck" (Billy Strayhorn) - 6:01# "There Are Such Things" -Track...
(with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
) - 1955 : The Charles Mingus Quartet plus Max Roach (with Charles MingusCharles MingusCharles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
) - 1956 : Sonny Rollins Plus 4Sonny Rollins Plus 4Sonny Rollins Plus 4 is a jazz album by Sonny Rollins, released in 1956 on Prestige Records. On this album Rollins plays with the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, of which he was a member at the time. The album was the last full recording including pianist Richie Powell and trumpeter Clifford...
(with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
) - 1956 : Introducing Johnny GriffinIntroducing Johnny GriffinIntroducing Johnny Griffin is the debut album by jazz tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. It was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack studio on April 17, 1956.- Track listing :# "Mildew" - 3:56# "Chicago Calling" - 5:38...
(with Johnny GriffinJohnny GriffinJohn Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
) - 1956 : The Magnificent Thad JonesThe Magnificent Thad JonesThe Magnificent Thad Jones is an album by American jazz trumpeter Thad Jones featuring performances recorded in 1956 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:...
(with Thad JonesThad JonesThaddeus Joseph Jones was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader.-Biography:Thad Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan to a musical family of ten . Thad Jones was a self taught musician, performing professionally by the age of sixteen...
) - 1956 : Brilliant CornersBrilliant CornersBrilliant Corners is a 1957 album by jazz musician Thelonious Monk. It was his third album for the Riverside label and the first, for this label, to include his own compositions. The complex title track required over a dozen takes in the studio, and is considered one of his most difficult...
(with Thelonious MonkThelonious MonkThelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
) - 1956 : Tour de ForceTour de Force (Sonny Rollins album)Tour de Force is an album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins featuring his final recordings for the Prestige label performed by Rollins with Kenny Drew, George Morrow, and Max Roach with vocals by Earl Coleman on two tracks.-References:...
(with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
) - 1956 : The Music of George Gershwin: I Sing of Thee (with Joe WilderJoe WilderJoe Wilder is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He best known for his beautiful tone and lyrical style.Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master's Hall of Fame Award in 2006...
) - 1956 : Rollins Plays For BirdRollins Plays for BirdRollins Plays for Bird is an album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, recorded for the Prestige label, featuring performances by Rollins with Kenny Dorham, Wade Legge, George Morrow, and Max Roach on material associated with Charlie Parker.-Reception:...
(Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
Quintet) - 1956 : Saxophone ColossusSaxophone ColossusSaxophone Colossus is one of Sonny Rollins' most acclaimed albums. Recorded and released in 1956, it has been awarded a rare Crown by The Penguin Guide to Jazz, and is widely considered the masterpiece of his mid-1950s series of recordings for Prestige Records and one of the greatest albums ever...
(with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
) - 1957 : First Place (with J.J. JohnsonJ.J. JohnsonJ. J. Johnson was a United States jazz trombonist, composer and arranger. He was sometimes credited as Jay Jay Johnson....
) - 1957 : Sonny Clark TrioSonny Clark TrioSonny Clark Trio is an album by jazz pianist Sonny Clark recorded for the Blue Note label and performed by Clark with Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. The album was awarded 4 stars by Michael G...
- 1957 : Jazz ContrastsJazz ContrastsJazz Contrasts is an album by American jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham featuring performances recorded in 1957 and released on the Riverside label...
(with Kenny DorhamKenny DorhamMcKinley Howard Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did...
) - 1958 : Freedom SuiteFreedom Suite (Sonny Rollins album)Freedom Suite is an album by jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, his last recorded for the Riverside label, featuring performances by Rollins with Oscar Pettiford...
(with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
) - 1958 : Shadow Waltz (with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
) - 1958 : Award-Winning Drummer (Time T)
- 1959 : A Little Sweet (aka. The Many Sides of Max )(Mercury)
- 1959 : Moon-Faced and Starry-Eyed (Mercury)
- 1960 : Quiet as it's Kept (Mercury)
- 1960 : Tommy Turrentine (with Tommy TurrentineTommy TurrentineThomas Walter Turrentine, Jr. was a swing and hard bop trumpeter of the 1940s to 1960s, the older brother of saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.-Biography:...
) - 1960 : Stan 'The Man' Turrentine
- 1960 : Again! (Affinity)
- 1960 : Parisian Sketches (Mercury)
- 1960 : We Insist! - Freedom NowWe Insist! - Freedom NowWe Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite is a 1960 jazz album containing a suite which Max Roach and lyricist Oscar Brown had begun to develop in 1959 with a view to its performance in 1963 on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. The cover references the sit-in movement of the Civil...
(Candid) - 1960 : Long as You're Living (Enja)
- 1960 : Uhuru Afrika (with Randy WestonRandy WestonRandy Weston , is an American jazz pianist and composer, of Jamaican parentage.-Biography:Weston studied classical piano as a child. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the leading bebop musicians...
) - 1960 : Sonny Clark TrioSonny Clark TrioSonny Clark Trio is an album by jazz pianist Sonny Clark recorded for the Blue Note label and performed by Clark with Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. The album was awarded 4 stars by Michael G...
(with Sonny ClarkSonny ClarkConrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark was an American jazz pianist who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom.-Biography:...
) - 1961 : Straight AheadStraight Ahead (Abbey Lincoln album)Straight Ahead is an album by American jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln featuring performances recorded in 1961 for the Candid label.-Reception:...
(with Abbey LincolnAbbey LincolnAnna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...
) - 1961 : Out FrontOut FrontOut Front is an album by American jazz trumpeter Booker Little featuring performances recorded in 1961 for the Candid label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 5 stars and stated "His seven now-obscure originals are challenging for the soloists and there are many strong...
(with Booker LittleBooker LittleBooker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...
) - 1961 : Paris BluesParis BluesParis Blues is an American feature film filmed on location in Paris, starring Sidney Poitier as expatriate jazz musician Eddie Cook, and Paul Newman as trombone-playing Ram Bowen. The two men romance two vacationing American tourists, Connie Lampson and Lillian Corning respectively...
(with Duke EllingtonDuke EllingtonEdward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
) - 1962 : Money JungleMoney JungleMoney Jungle is a jazz album by Duke Ellington with Charles Mingus and Max Roach recorded on September 17, 1962 and released in February 1963 by United Artists Jazz....
(with Duke EllingtonDuke EllingtonEdward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and Charles MingusCharles MingusCharles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
) - 1962 : Drum Suite (with Slide HamptonSlide HamptonLocksley Wellington "Slide" Hampton is an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.He was a 1998 Grammy Award winner for "Best Jazz Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist", as arranger for "Cotton Tail" performed by Dee Dee Bridgewater...
) - 1966 : Stuttgart 1963 Concert (with Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
- 1972 : Newport in New York ‘72 (Roach on 2 tracks only)
- 1975 : The Bop Session (with Dizzy GillespieDizzy GillespieJohn Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Sonny StittSonny StittEdward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, John LewisJohn Lewis (pianist)John Aaron Lewis was an American jazz pianist and composer best known as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.- Early life:...
, Hank JonesHank JonesHenry "Hank" Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award...
and Percy HeathPercy HeathPercy Heath was an American jazz bassist, brother to tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975...
)
External links
- Max Roach 1924-2007: Thousands Pay Tribute to the Legendary Jazz Drummer, Educator, Activist
- Max Roach at the Hard Bop Homepage
- Discography at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- Discography and Sessionography
- New York Times obituary
- New York Sun Obituary
- Obituary and Public Tributes
- Slate Magazine Article
- Max Roach Multimedia Directory