Collection: Roy Haynes

Roy Haynes arrived in New York from Roxbury, Boston in 1945 and spent the next eight decades playing with practically every significant musician in jazz, from Lester Young and Charlie Parker in the bebop years through Sarah Vaughan, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane in the 1950s and 1960s, to Chick Corea, Pat Metheny and Anthony Braxton in later decades. The list is so long it risks becoming meaningless, but the more useful thing to know is that he was often the drummer people called when their first-choice drummer wasn't available, and that the sessions that resulted under those circumstances were frequently among the best either artist ever made. He depped regularly for Elvin Jones in the Coltrane Quartet. He played on two of Andrew Hill's most important Blue Note dates, "Black Fire" and "Smoke Stack." He appeared on Coltrane and Hartman. He was on sessions for Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Miles Davis and Stan Getz that defined what bebop rhythm sections could do. His own recordings as a leader are less discussed than they should be. "We Three" (New Jazz, 1958), a piano trio date with Phineas Newborn and Paul Chambers, is one of the finest small group recordings of the late 1950s. "Out of the Afternoon" (Impulse!, 1962), with Rahsaan Roland Kirk on saxophones, Tommy Flanagan on piano and Henry Grimes on bass, is his most celebrated leadership statement and among the best things anyone in that circle made for Impulse!. His nickname "Snap Crackle" came from the distinctiveness of his snare drum sound, and the Wire described his approach as earthed in swing era drumming more than his contemporaries, rhythmically fundamental rather than stylistically positioned. He died on 12 November 2024 in Nassau County, New York, aged 99, having performed into his late eighties.