Jazz drummer Max Roach, famed for developing the bebop sound, has died aged 83. Tributes have been pouring in for the legend, who performed with luminaries such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Nat King Cole. Musician Quincy Jones said: “Thank God he left a piece of his soul o...
Jazz drummer Max Roach, famed for developing the bebop sound, has died aged 83.
Tributes have been pouring in for the legend, who performed with luminaries such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Nat King Cole.
Musician Quincy Jones said: “Thank God he left a piece of his soul on his recordings so that we’ll always have a part of him with us.”
Record label Blue Note also paid their condolences, saying Roach was “an unmistakable force on numerous classic recordings.”
Born in 1924, the drummer quickly progressed to playing with Parker and Gillespie at New York club Monroe’s Uptown House.
Roach and drummer Kenny Clarke are widely thought to have invented bebop, relying more on the cymbals to keep time and so allowing more freedom on the rest of the kit.
Roach also contributed to sessions for Miles Davis’ seminal 1957 album “Birth Of The Cool”.