At 18, Max Roach got a call to fill in for Duke Ellington's drummer at a Manhattan theater with no rehearsal. This episode follows the North Carolina-born, Brooklyn-raised musician from gospel bands and bugle parades to his 1943 recording with Coleman Hawkins and the bebop revolution, where he and Kenny Clarke moved the timekeeping pulse from the bass drum to the ride cymbal and freed soloists like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

We cover his classical percussion studies at the Manhattan School of Music, co-founding Debut Records with Charles Mingus, the 1953 Massey Hall concert, the quintet with Clifford Brown and its tragic end on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and Jazz in 3/4 Time. Then we turn to We Insist! Freedom Now Suite with Abbey Lincoln, the Newport Rebels festival, his protest at the United Nations Security Council, the all-perc ...