Roach's Innovations Changed Jazz Beat

Published: Aug 17, 2007

NEW YORK - By his 30th birthday, Max Roach was already considered the greatest jazz drummer ever by his peers.

By the time he died this week, the 83-year-old master percussionist was known worldwide as much more: innovator, activist, teacher, genius.

Roach, whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness.

Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Roach was elected to the Downbeat magazine Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Grammy Hall of Fame 15 years later.

"Max was one of the founders and original members of the A-Team of bebop," said fellow music legend Quincy Jones. "Outside of losing a giant and an innovator, I've lost a great, great friend. Thank God he left a piece of his soul on his recordings so that we'll always have a part of him with us."

In 1988, Roach became the first jazz musician ever honored with a MacArthur Fellowship - receiving a $372,000 "genius grant."

The creatively restless Roach, who debuted with Ellington's band as a self-taught 16-year-old drummer in 1940, challenged his listeners and himself by making music that connected the jazz of the pre-World War II era with the beats of the hip-hop generation.

His place in the pantheon of jazz greats long since secured, Roach collaborated with drummers from around the world, with a string quartet that featured daughter Maxine, and with rapper Fab Five Freddy.

The North Carolina native was born on Jan. 10, 1924, and moved to Brooklyn with his family four years later.