Died On This Date (August 16, 2007) Max Roach / Jazz Icon
themusicsover Max Roach
January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007
Many jazz fans consider Max Roach to have been one of the genre’s greatest drummers. One of the early practitioners of bebop, Roach made his mark playing behind some of popular music’s greatest musicians. That list includes Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins. Throughout a recording career that spanned nearly 60 years, Roach performed on over 100 albums, either as a sideman or leader. Of those albums, 1962’s Money Jungle with Mingus and Ellington has been called the greatest trio album ever recorded. Off the stage, Roach was an civil rights activist. He passed away at the age of natural causes at the age of 83.
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Herman Leonard was an American photographer who is revered for the countless iconic photos he took of jazz musicians throughout his career. After graduating from college, Leonard landed an apprenticeship where he was lucky enough to shoot pictures of Albert Einstein and Harry Truman. By the early ’50s, he was running his own Greenwich Village studio and freelancing for national magazines. By then he had turned his focus on the local jazz scene. His most famous photographs include those of Dexter Gordon, 
Besides having a long and ultra-successful career as a television host and media mogul, Merv Griffin was also a very talented musician and songwriter. Griffin began his music career as a singer at the age of 19 when he appeared on a nationally syndicated radio program which lead to a gig singing in front of a traveling orchestra for the next four years. Shortly thereafter, Griffin recorded his first album, Songs By Merv Griffin, which would go down in history as the first American album ever recorded on magnetic tape. At 25, Griffin’s “I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts” became a chart topper, eventually selling some three million copies. By now Griffin was a popular fixture on the nightclub circuit, where he was discovered by Doris Day who opened some Hollywood doors which eventually lead to his lucrative film and television career. Griffin’s most popular song was a lullaby written for his son entitled “A Time For Tony.” The tune was renamed “Think!” and found a home as the countdown music for the Final Jeopardy rounds. Griffin has said that that simple melody has earned him in excess of $70 million dollars in royalties. Merv Griffin passed away as a result of prostate cancer on August 12, 2007. He was 82.