"Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty."

Max Roach is not just a drummer that keeps time. He is a drummer that can create a song with a beginning, middle, and end, with an instrument that most people thought served the sole purpose of keeping the band together.

Upon graduating from the Manhattan School of Music in 1942, Roach found immediate success playing with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Monroe’s Uptown House and Minton’s Playhouse. This is where bebop began, and Roach was right in the middle of it. In 1945, he joined Parker’s quintet, and performed with them on a regular basis until 1953. There was plenty of room in this new kind of jazz for Roach to develop as a soloist. "One thing I gloried in, working with people like Charlie Parker, was the built-in rhythm section. You didn't need a drummer or a bass player to know where the time was."

It’s not just about the solos, though. Roach has a way of injecting little bits of brilliance throughout a piece. You always know he’s there, because he lets the inspired moments go as they happen instead of saving it for a spotlight moment. "A lot of things we do never have a chance to come out. When the moment comes where the band finally turns around and says, "Okay, you got it," most of the time you overdo it."

Roach became part of another jazz movement between 1948 and 1950, when he recorded sessions with Miles Davis’ band; these sessions later became "Birth of the Cool".

The most important collaboration in Roach’s career came in 1954 when he formed a quintet with trumpeter Clifford Brown. Many of the defining recordings of hard bop came out of this group. Unfortunately their partnership abruptly in 1956, when Brown was killed in a car accident.

Roach was an active member of the civil rights movement in the 1960s; this is how he met activist Abbey Lincoln, who would be his wife for the next eight years. During this period he released "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite", a political, moving album that featured vocals by Lincoln. The music became a way for him to express societal as well as musical ideas. "Art is a powerful weapon that society, or the powers that be, use to control or direct the way people think. Culture is used to perpetuate the status quo of a society. Even though I'm involved in music for the sake of entertainment, I always hope to offer some kind of enlightenment."

In more recent years, Roach has shown an interest in free form jazz. It’s definitely not for everyone, but at least he can never be accused of lacking innovation.

His immense knowledge of rhythm and improvisation has been passed on at the University of Massachusetts, where he worked as a professor in the music department for a number of years. He still records and tours.

Update: Max Roach died Thursday, August 16, 2007 at age 83.