Happy Birthday, Max Roach

Jazz drummer Max Roach was born on January 10, 1924, in Newland, North Carolina. Roach is regarded as one of the greatest jazz drummers and was a pioneer of bebop. He worked with a number of famous jazz musicians, including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, and Eric Dolphy.

Writing about Roach's work with Parker, Len Lyons notes, "Max Roach was wholly comfortable with Parker's rhythmic gymnastics, one of the few drummers at the time who was."  Roach was given a MacArthur Foundation "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, named a Harvard Jazz Master, and awarded eight honorary doctorate degrees, including degrees from Medgar Evers College, CUNY, the University of Bologna, Italy and Columbia University.

Roach appears on several albums in The 101 Best Jazz Albums, most notably:

• The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever (Prestige).  (Purchase the CD from Amazon.com.)
• Clifford Brown: The Quintet, Vol. 1 (EmArcy/Mercury).  Unfortunately, this album is not available on CD, and so Jim Determan recommends instead Clifford Brown and Max Roach (EmArcy/Polygram).  (Purchase the CD from Amazon.com.)

Roach plays a drum solo on "The Third Eye" here:

Robert
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