Pete La Roca, Top Post-Bop Jazz Drummer, Has Died
Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images/Corbis
The
drummer Pete La Roca, a top freelance
drummer during New
York's post-bop heyday in the 1950s and '60s, died
early this morning in New York. The cause was lung cancer, according
to Randa Kirshbaum, a former girlfriend. He was 74 years old.
A
native of Harlem, Peter Sims — La Roca being a nickname he adopted
while playing percussion in Latin ensembles — played what
he called his
first jazz gig in 1957. It was immortalized when it was recorded and
issued as part of Sonny Rollins' A
Night at the Village Vanguard trio
recording. Having gained a reputation as a capable sight reader, and
being known to the management of Blue Note Records, La Roca was
tapped for many other recordings with Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean,
Joe Henderson and others. He also enjoyed a short stint in John
Coltrane's quartet, preceding drummer Elvin Jones.
Discouraged
by the jazz fusion movement in the late 1960s — a swing devotee, he
was not keen on playing rock and backbeats — La Roca saw his
musical opportunities decline. To raise a family, he supplemented his
income by driving a taxi and later became a lawyer. But it wasn't
before recording two well-received albums as a
leader, Basra and Turkish
Women at the Bath,
whose titles reflected his compositional interests in Middle Eastern
and other non-Western modes. He would eventually return to more
frequent performing and recording with his SwingTime sextet,
continuing nearly to the present day.
"He
was by far one of the most brilliant minds I ever knew, one of the
greatest musicians I ever encountered who for starters would sing the
bass line IN KEY and was a drummer like no one else," wrote
the saxophonist Dave Liebman,
who played in La Roca's band in 1969, on Facebook.
A
memorial concert will be held Dec. 28 at St. Peter's Church, known as
"the jazz church," in New York.
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