On Sunday, March 26, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz visited world-renowned jazz drummer and composer Max Roach at the Sunrise Nursing Home in Mill Basin, and presented him with a proclamation honoring his historic musical achievements and his enormous contributions to Brooklyn’s jazz legacy.

“Max Roach was an innovator and jazz pioneer who continued the tradition of this quintessentially American art form,” said Borough President Markowitz. “He is truly a Brooklyn treasure.”
 
Born in 1925 in North Carolina, Roach moved to Brooklyn three years later and began his musical career playing with gospel music groups, performing for the first time on piano at Concord Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he lived as a child. He became a leading drummer in the be-bop movement of the 1940’s, playing with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s bands and revolutionizing jazz percussion by shifting the emphasis from drum-based swing to cymbal-based rides.
 
Roach was a seminal figure in Brooklyn’s thriving jazz scene, laying the foundation for future artists. In addition to recording and gigging with jazz legends such as Miles Davis and Charles Mingus, Roach has played with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and performed a rare duet with fellow Brooklynite Randy Weston at the Brooklyn Museum’s sculpture garden in 1990. He was honored at the first annual Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival in 2000.

Several members of Roach’s family currently live in Fort Greene.