Granville William "Mickey" Roker (September 3, 1932 – May 22, 2017) was an American jazz drummer.

Biography

Roker was born into extreme poverty in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

to Granville (Sr.) and Willie Mae Roker. After his mother died (his father never lived with them), when he was only ten, he was taken by his grandmother to live in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

with his uncle Walter, who gave him his first

drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

and communicated his love of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

to his nephew. He also introduced the young Roker to the jazz scene in Philadelphia, where drummer

Philly Joe Jones Joseph Rudolph "Philly Joe" Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was an American Jazz drumming, jazz drummer. Biography Early career As a child, Jones appeared as a featured tap dancer on ''The Kiddie Show'' on the Philadelphia radio stat ...

became Roker's idol. In the early 1950s, he began to gain recognition as a sensitive yet hard-driving

big-band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

drummer. He was especially favored by

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...

, who remarked of him that "once he sets a groove, whatever it is, you can go to Paris and come back and it's right there. You never have to worry about it." Roker was soon in demand for his supportive skills in both big-band and small-group settings. While in Philadelphia he played with Jimmy Oliver,

Jimmy Heath James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath. Biography Heath w ...

, Jimmy Divine, King James and Sam Reed before moving to New York in 1959, where his first gigs were with

Gigi Gryce Gigi Gryce (born George General Grice Jr.; November 28, 1925 – March 17, 1983), later in life changing his name to Basheer Qusim, was an American jazz saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator. While his performing ...

, Ray Bryant, Joe Williams,

Junior Mance Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. (October 10, 1928 – January 17, 2021), known as Junior Mance, was an American jazz pianist and composer. Biography Early life (1928–1947) Mance was born in Evanston, Illinois. When he was five years old, Mance st ...

, Nancy Wilson and the Duke Pearson big band. In 1965 Mickey joined Art Farmer and Benny Golson's revamped group, the "New York Jazz Sextet". In 1992, he replaced Connie Kay in the

Modern Jazz Quartet The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) was a jazz combo established in 1952 that played music influenced by classical music, classical, cool jazz, blues and bebop. The Quartet consisted of John Lewis (pianist), John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphon ...

. He recorded with

Sonny Rollins Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American retired jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, Rollins recorded over sixt ...

, Duke Pearson, Tommy Flanagan,

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phra ...

Zoot Sims John Haley "Zoot" Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the "Four Brothers" sax section of Woody Herman's big ...

Horace Silver Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver (September 2, 1928 – June 18, 2014) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, particularly in the hard bop style that he helped pioneer in the 1950s. After playing tenor saxophone and piano at sch ...

Sarah Vaughan Sarah Lois Vaughan (, March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Sassy" and "List of nicknames of jazz musicians, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, ...

Milt Jackson Milton Jackson (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999), nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solos as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his penchant for collaborating with ...

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of ...

Phil Woods Philip Wells Woods (November 2, 1931 – September 29, 2015) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer. Biography Woods was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began t ...

Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordin ...

, Ray Brown, Bucky Pizzarelli,

Stanley Turrentine Stanley William Turrentine (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000) was an American jazz tenor saxophone, tenor saxophonist and record producer. He began his career playing R&B for Earl Bostic and later soul jazz recording for the Blue Note Reco ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in ''Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. In 1984, sh ...

Hank Jones Henry Jones Jr. (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians have described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts h ...

Bobby Hutcherson Robert Hutcherson (January 27, 1941 – August 15, 2016) was an American jazz vibraphone and marimba player. "Little B's Poem", from the 1966 Blue Note Records, Blue Note album ''Components (album), Components'', is one of his best-known composi ...

, Joe Locke, and many other jazz musicians. Roker was still active on the Philadelphia music scene during the 21st century. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of 84, of natural causes, though he had been suffering from diabetes, lung cancer, and other health issues.

Discography

As sideman

With

Nat Adderley Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It ...

*'' Little Big Horn'' (Riverside, 1963) With

Gene Ammons Eugene "Jug" Ammons (April 14, 1925 – August 6, 1974), also known as "The Boss", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. The son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons, Gene Ammons is remembered for his accessible music, steeped in soul and R ...

*'' Got My Own'' (Prestige, 1972) *'' Big Bad Jug'' (Prestige, 1972) *'' Together Again for the Last Time'' (Prestige, 1973

976 Year 976 ( CMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * January 10 – Emperor John I Tzimiskes dies at Constantinople, after returning from a second campaign against ...

- with

Sonny Stitt Sonny Stitt (born Edward Hammond Boatner Jr.; February 2, 1924 – July 22, 1982) was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his era, recording over ...

With

Roy Ayers Roy Edward Ayers Jr. (September 10, 1940 – March 4, 2025) was an American vibraphonist, record producer, and composer. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several studio albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure ...

*'' Daddy Bug'' (Atlantic, 1969) With

Joshua Breakstone Joshua Breakstone (born July 22, 1955) is an American jazz guitarist. Breakstone came into contact with the music business early in life through his parents and siblings. His sister was a lighting technician at the Fillmore East theater, where ...

*'' Let's Call This Monk!'' (Double-Time, 1997) With

Randy Brecker Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock music, rock, and R&B. Early life Brecker was ...

*''

Score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...

'' (Solid State, 1969) With Ray Brown *''Red Hot Ray Brown Trio'' (Concord, 1987) With Ray Bryant *'' Con Alma'' (Columbia, 1960) *'' Dancing the Big Twist'' (Columbia, 1961) With Donald Byrd ''The Creeper'' (Blue Note, 1967) ''Electric Byrd'' (Blue Note, 1970) ''Kofi'' (Blue Note, 1969, 1970)00 With Jon Faddis *'' Youngblood'' (Pablo, 1976) With

Art Farmer Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, doub ...

*'' The Time and the Place: The Lost Concert'' (Mosaic, 1966

007 The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

*'' The Time and the Place'' (Columbia, 1967) *'' The Art Farmer Quintet Plays the Great Jazz Hits'' (Columbia, 1967) With Frank Foster *'' Manhattan Fever'' (Blue Note, 1968) With

*'' Dizzy Gillespie's Big 4'' (Pablo, 1974) *'' Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods'' (Pablo, 1975) with

Machito Frank Grillo (born Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo; December 3, 1909 – April 15, 1984) known professionally as Machito (previously as Macho), was a Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music ...

*'' The Dizzy Gillespie Big 7'' (Pablo, 1975) *'' Bahiana'' (Pablo, 1975) *'' Carter, Gillespie Inc.'' (Pablo, 1976) with

Benny Carter Bennett Lester Carter (August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. With Johnny Hodges, he was a pioneer on the alto saxophone. From the beginning of his career ...

*'' Dizzy's Party'' (Pablo, 1976) With

*'' Saying Somethin'!'' (New Jazz, 1960) *'' The Hap'nin's'' (New Jazz, 1960) *'' The Rat Race Blues'' (New Jazz, 1960) *'' Doin' the Gigi'' (Uptown, 2011) With

*'' Speak Like a Child'' (Blue Note, 1968) With

Gene Harris Gene Harris (born Eugene Haire, September 1, 1933 – January 16, 2000) was an American jazz pianist known for his warm sound and blues and gospel infused style that is known as soul jazz. From 1956 to 1970, he played in The Three Sounds tri ...

*''The Gene Harris Trio Plus One'' (Concord, 1984) With

*''

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

'' (Blue Note, 1970) With

*''

Born Free ''Born Free'' is a 1966 British drama film starring the real-life couple Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, another real-life couple, who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood and released h ...

'' (Limelight, 1966) *'' Milt Jackson and the Hip String Quartet'' (Verve, 1968) *'' Olinga'' (CTI, 1974) *'' The Milt Jackson Big 4'' (Pablo, 1975) With Willis Jackson *'' Really Groovin''' (Prestige, 1961) *'' In My Solitude'' (Moodsville, 1961) With

*'' Groovin' High'' (Muse, 1978) With Sam Jones *'' Something New'' (Interplay, 1979) With

Irene Kral Irene Kral (January 18, 1932 – August 15, 1978) was an American jazz singer. Life She was born to Czechoslovak parents in Chicago and settled in Los Angeles, California, in the early 1960s. She died from breast cancer in Encino, Los Angeles. ...

*'' Better Than Anything'' ( Äva, 1963) With

Charles Kynard Charles Kynard (20 February 1933 – 8 July 1979) was an American soul jazz/acid jazz organist born in St. Louis, Missouri. Kynard first played piano then switched to organ and led a trio in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City including Tex J ...

*'' The Soul Brotherhood'' (Prestige, 1969) With

Mike Longo Michael Josef Longo (March 19, 1937 – March 22, 2020) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and author. Early life Longo was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to parents who had a musical background. His father played bass, his mother played organ at c ...

*'' Funkia'' (Groove Merchant, 1973) *'' Talk with the Spirits'' (Pablo, 1976) With

*'' Junior's Blues'' (Riverside, 1962) *'' Happy Time'' (Jazzland, 1962) *''Monk (Live)'' (Chiaroscuro, 2003) With

Herbie Mann Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003), known by his stage name Herbie Mann, was an American jazz Flute, flute player and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played tenor saxophone and clarinet ...

*'' Stone Flute'' (Embryo, 1969 970 With Blue Mitchell *'' Boss Horn'' (Blue Note, 1966) With the

*'' MJQ & Friends: A 40th Anniversary Celebration'' (Atlantic, 1994) With

Lee Morgan Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s and a cornerstone of the Blue Note Records, Blue Note label, Morgan came to prominence in his la ...

*''

Standards Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...

'' (Blue Note, 1967) *'' Live at the Lighthouse'' (Blue Note, 1970) *''

Sonic Boom A sonic boom is a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to ...

'' (Blue Note, released 1979) With The N.Y. Hardbop Quintet *'' Rokermotion'' (TCB, 1996) With Joe Pass * ''Quadrant'' (Pablo, 1977) With Duke Pearson *'' Wahoo!'' (1964) *'' Honeybuns'' (1965) *''

Prairie Dog Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing Marmotini, ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. There are five recognized species of prairie dog: black-tailed prairie dog, black-tailed, white-tailed prairie dog ...

'' (1966) *'' Sweet Honey Bee'' (Blue Note, 1966) *'' Introducing Duke Pearson's Big Band'' (Blue Note, 1967) *''

The Phantom ''The Phantom'' is an American adventure comic strip, first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The char ...

'' (Blue Note, 1968) *'' Now Hear This'' (Blue Note, 1968) *'' How Insensitive'' (Blue Note, 1969) *'' It Could Only Happen with You'' (1970) With

and Stephane Grappelli *'' Skol'' (Pablo, 1979) With Billie Poole *'' Confessin' the Blues'' (Riverside, 1963) With

*'' There Will Never Be Another You (album)'' (Impulse!, 1965) *'' Sonny Rollins on Impulse!'' (Impulse!, 1965) With

Shirley Scott Shirley Scott (March 14, 1934 – March 10, 2002) was an American jazz organist. Her music was noted for its mixture of bebop, blues, and gospel elements. She was known by the nickname "Queen of the Organ". Life and career Scott was born in P ...

* '' Soul Duo'' (Impulse!, 1966) with

Clark Terry Clark Virgil Terry Jr. (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American Swing music, swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator. He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948� ...

* ''

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentGreat Scott!'' (Muse, 1991) *'' Blues Everywhere'' (Candid, 1991) *'' Skylark'' (Candid, 1991) With

*'' All'' (Blue Note, 1972) *'' In Pursuit of the 27th Man'' (Blue Note, 1973) With Buddy Terry *''

Awareness In philosophy and psychology, awareness is the perception or knowledge of something. The concept is often synonymous with consciousness. However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of bli ...

'' (Mainstream, 1971) With

*'' Rough 'n' Tumble'' (Blue Note, 1966) *'' The Spoiler'' (Blue Note, 1966) With

McCoy Tyner Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet from 1960 to 1965, and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA J ...

*'' Live at Newport'' (Impulse!, 1963) With Harold Vick *'' The Caribbean Suite'' (RCA Victor, 1966) *'' Commitment'' (Muse, 1967

974 Year 974 ( CMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Battle of Danevirke: Emperor Otto II defeats the rebel forces of King Harald I, who has invaded Nordalbingia (modern-day Ho ...

With

Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...

*''

Zoning In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into land-use "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for ...

'' (Mary Records, 1974 - later reissued by Smithsonian Folkways, with expansion) *'' Free Spirits'' (SteepleChase, 1975) With

Cedar Walton Cedar Anthony Walton Jr. (January 17, 1934 – August 19, 2013) was an American hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey's band, The Jazz Messengers, before establishing a long career as a bandleader and c ...

*'' The Electric Boogaloo Song'' (Prestige, 1969) With Joe Williams *'' At Newport '63'' (RCA Victor, 1963) With Reuben Wilson *''

The Cisco Kid The Cisco Kid is a fictional character found in numerous film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way", published in ''Everybody's Maga ...

'' (Groove Merchant, 1973) With

*'' Rights of Swing'' (Candid, 1961)

References

External links

* * *
Mickey Roker
at Drummerworld {{DEFAULTSORT:Roker, Mickey 1932 births 2017 deaths African-American jazz musicians American jazz drummers Musicians from Miami Deaths from lung cancer in Pennsylvania Modern Jazz Quartet members American male drummers Drummers from Florida