Max Roach Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. He was inducted into the "DownBeat" Hall of Fame in 1980 and the "Modern Drummer" Hall of Fame in 1992. Roach
Debut Records Teo Macero, later a producer with Miles Davis, recorded his first album as a leader as a saxophonist for Debut, an album described by critic Dan Morgenstern as an oddball fusion of Lennie Tristano and Anton Webern. Debut was the label on which the "Jazz at Massey Hall" concert album was first issued. Recorded in Toronto, it features Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach, and was the last recorded meeting of long-term musical partners Parker and Gillespie. In 1957 Danish bookseller Ole Vestegaard leased the company's catalogue from Mingus and produced recordings on the Danish