Drummer Max Roach (Newland, North Carolina, 1924) is considered along with Kenny Clarke as inventors of bebop drumming. Roach began his career at age sixteen as a substitute in the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. In New York he met other bebop, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke. When the latter in 1943 was in the military, Roach replaced him with
… Charlie Parker. In 1945 he made several recordings with Parker and Gillespie and he was asked by Gillespie for his big band. Along with trumpeter Clifford Brown in 1954 he founded the Brown-Roach Quintet that quickly became one of the most important hard bop groups. The band came to an abrupt end by a fatal car accident in 1956. Brown later Roach started a new quintet, and he played with Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor and Dollar Brand. From the beginning of the eighties Roach did some solo concerts and he led several groups, such as the percussion ensemble M'Boom. He died in 2007op age of 83.more