Max Roach has died...

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Miles Davis Pictures: Max Roach has died...

See More... Max Roach, one of modern jazz's most influential drummers, has died. Roach was a master, and can be heard on hundreds of recordings. Max Roach got his first musical break at age 16, filling in when Duke Ellington's drummer fell ill in 1940. Those three nights spawned a career that would make the self-taught Roach the first jazz musician ever honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, or "genius grant." His rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz. His peers deemed him the greatest jazz drummer ever by the time he was 30. And after helping reinvent the genre, he became one of its loudest voices for civil rights.The master percussionist died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness. He was 83. No additional details were available, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records, where Roach played on seminal recordings with Ellington, Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis. Roach was elected to the Downbeat magazine Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Grammy Hall of Fame 15 years later. He won a $372,000 MacArthur grant in 1988.

105 LedSpencer Published 8/18/07 Message Add to Friends

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