The easy names to remember in jazz are the improvisers and the melody makers — Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk. Lesser known (to the general public, at least) and equally — if not more — important, are the keepers of the rhythm, the backbones of the form. Guys like Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Max Roach. During his 50-year recording career, Roach played with virtually every significant jazz musician, and also co-founded Debut Records with Charles Mingus and fought as hard as any man in jazz for equal rights, which led to his being blacklisted by the recording industry in the ’60s. Today would have been his 88th birthday.
