Who did Max Roach inspire with his astoundingly innovative drumming and exceptional musical eloquence? It might be easier to ask who he didn’t inspire, given the enormous, genre-leaping impact of Roach, who died in 2007 at the age of 83 and would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Wednesday. Roach played with nearly every jazz great of his time, from Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to such cutting-edge mavericks as Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton. He wrote music for dance pieces by Alvin Ailey and theater pieces by Sam Shepard, both longtime admirers, as well as doing the mu…
