NEW YORK — Max Roach, the master percussionist whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, died Wednesday. He was 83.
Roach died in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness. No additional details were available, said Cem Kuros-man, spokes-man for Blue Note Re-cords.
Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Roach was elected to the Downbeat magazine Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Grammy Hall of Fame 15 years later.
In 1988 he became the first jazz musician ever honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, receiving a $372,000 "genius grant."
The creatively restless Roach, who debuted with Ellington's band as a self-taught 16-year-old drummer in 1940, challenged his listeners and himself by making music that connected the jazz of the pre-World War II era with the beats of the hip-hop generation.
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His place in the pantheon of jazz greats long since secured, Roach collaborated with drummers from around the world, with a string quartet that featured daughter Maxine, and with rapper Fab Five Freddy.
The North Carolina native was born on Jan. 10, 1924, and moved to Brooklyn with his family four years later.
A player piano left by the previous tenants gave Roach his musical introduction.
But he was looking for another instrument while singing with the children's choir at the Concord Baptist Church.
Roach found a snare drum, and he was quickly hooked. His father gave the eighth-grader his first set of drums, and Roach was drumming professionally while still in high school.
