Pete La Roca

Pete La Roca (born Peter Sims; April 7, 1938 – November 20, 2012)[1] was an American jazz drummer. Born and raised in Harlem by a pianist mother and a stepfather who played trumpet, he was introduced to jazz by his uncle Kenneth Bright, a major shareholder in Circle Records and the manager of rehearsal spaces above the Lafayette Theater. Sims learned percussion in Public School, at the High School of Music and Art, and at the City College of New York, where he played tympani in the CCNY Orchestra.[2] He adopted the name La Roca early in his musical career when he played timbales for six years in Latin bands.[3]

Pete La Roca
Birth namePeter Sims
Born(1938-04-07)April 7, 1938
Harlem, New York, United States
DiedNovember 20, 2012(2012-11-20) (aged 74)
GenresJazz
Occupation(s)Drummer

In 1957 Max Roach became aware of him while jamming at Birdland and recommended him to Sonny Rollins. As drummer of Rollins' trio on the afternoon set at the Village Vanguard on November 3 he became part of the important record A Night at the Village Vanguard (Originally only one of five recorded tracks with La Roca found their way on the album). In 1959 he recorded with Jackie McLean (New Soil) and in a quartet with Tony Scott, Bill Evans and Jimmy Garrison. Besides Garrison he often joined with bassists who played in the Bill Evans Trio, especially Scott LaFaro and Steve Swallow, and also accompanied pianists like Steve Kuhn, Don Friedman and Paul Bley.

Between the end of the 1950s and 1968 he also played with Slide Hampton, the John Coltrane Quartet, Marian McPartland, Art Farmer, Freddie Hubbard, Mose Allison, Charles Lloyd, among others, as well as leading his own group and working as the house drummer at the Jazz Workshop in Boston, Massachusetts. During this period, he twice recorded as leader, firstly on Basra (Blue Note, 1965) and also on Turkish Women at the Bath (Douglas, 1967), also issued as Bliss under pianist Chick Corea's name on Muse.

In 1968 he stopped taking side-man gigs, and only accepted work as a band leader. La Roca began earning a living by driving a taxi cab in New York City, and later attended law school at New York University. When his second album as leader, Turkish Women at the Bath, was released under Chick Corea's name without La Roca's consent, La Roca filed and argued a lawsuit against Douglas Records, and the erroneously-labeled records were recalled.

He returned to jazz in 1979, and recorded one new album as a leader, Swing Time (Blue Note, 1997).

He died in New York of lung cancer at the age of 74.[4]

Discography

As leader

As sideman

With Anamari

  • Anamari (Atlantic, 1964)

With Bill Barron

With Paul Bley

With Rocky Boyd

With Jaki Byard

With Sonny Clark

  • My Conception (rec. 1957, Blue Note compilation, 1979)
  • Sonny Clark Quintets a.k.a. Cool Struttin' Volume 2 (rec. 1958, Blue Note, 1965)

With Johnny Coles

With Ted Curson

With Art Farmer

With the Don Friedman Trio

With Slide Hampton

With Joe Henderson

With Freddie Hubbard

With the Steve Kuhn Trio

With Booker Little

With Charles Lloyd

With Jackie McLean

With Helen Merrill and Dick Katz

  • The Feeling Is Mutual (Milestone, 1967)

With J.R. Monterose

  • The Message (Jaro, 1960)

With Sonny Rollins

With George Russell

With Tony Scott

With the Paul Serrano Quintet

References
  1. Jeff Tamarkin "Drummer & Composer Pete La Roca Dies at 74", Jazz Times, November 20, 2012
  2. Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians Archived August 31, 2012, at the Wayback Machine at Jazz.com
  3. Interview with José Francisco Tapiz for Tomajazz.com in 2004.
  4. https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2012/11/20/165593227/pete-la-roca-top-post-bop-jazz-drummer-has-died
  5. "Charles Lloyd - Live At Slugs'". Discogs. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
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