Roach, Max

byname of Maxwell Roach

(born Jan. 10, 1925, Brooklyn, New York, N.Y., U.S.) American jazz drummer and composer, one of the most influential and widely recorded modern percussionists.

Roach was associated with Charlie Parker at Minton's Playhouse during the development of bebop in the mid-1940s, moving the fixed pulse in jazz from the bass drum to the ride cymbal and creating a polyrhythmic, percussive texture by exploiting the flexibility of the trap-drum set. By carefully developing thematic ideas on his drums, Roach elevated the percussionist to the equal of melodic improvisers. Roach participated in recordings by Parker's quintet in 1947–48 and in the Miles Davis series “Birth of The Cool”; co-led an early 1950s quintet with trumpeter Clifford Brown; and in the 1960s composed, with lyricist Oscar Brown, Jr., the “Freedom Now Suite” for his then wife, vocalist Abbey Lincoln, a chorus, instrumental soloists, and ensemble. Throughout the 1970s Roach led combos and recorded frequently, later establishing an all-percussion ensemble, M'Boom. From 1971 Roach was a tenured professor at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), and in 1980 he embarked on a series of duets with such avant-garde improvisers as pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Anthony Braxton.