Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16,2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. Apioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles ofmusic, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He worked with manyfamous jazz musicians, including Clifford Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis,Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz,Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. He also played with his daughter Maxine Roach, a Grammy nominated violist. He was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1992.
Max Roach was born to Alphonse and Cressie Roach in he Township of Newland, Pasquotank County, North Carolina, which borders the southern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp. The Township of Newland is sometimes mistaken for Newland Town in Avery County, North Carolina.
Roach's family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, when he was four years old. He grew up in a musical home with his gospel singer mother.He started to play bugle in parades at a young age.At the age of 10, he was already playing drums in some gospel bands.
In 1942, as an 18-year-old recently graduated from Boys High School in Brooklyn, he was called to fill in for SonnyGreer with the Duke Ellington Orchestra performing at the Paramount Theater in Manhattan. He started goingto the jazz clubs on 52nd Street and at 78th Street & Broadway for Georgie Jay's Taproom, where he played with schoolmate Cecil Payne. His first professional recording took place in December 1943, backing Coleman Hawkins.
