Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

- Max Roach

Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.

- Max Roach

The American drummer is a one-man percussion orchestra.

- Max Roach

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

- Max Roach

I always resented the role of a drummer as nothing more than a subservient figure.

- Max Roach

I used to take musical instruments home from elementary school. There were some music teachers there - we all learned instruments. A lot of us got st…

- Max Roach

My point is that we much decolonize our minds and re-name and re-define ourselves . . . In all respects, culturally, politically, socially, we must r…

- Max Roach

You can't write the same book twice. Though I've been in historical musical situations, I can't go back and do that again. And though I run into arti…

- Max Roach

I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It's the rhythm section that has changed the styles fr…

- Max Roach