One of the first significant engagements taken on by the great US jazz drummer Roy Haynes, who has died aged 99, was a lengthy stint with Lester Young. After two years in that role, from 1947 until 1949, he replaced Max Roach in Charlie Parker’s quintet. Then, in the early 1960s, John Coltrane chose him whenever his regular drummer, Elvin Jones, was elsewhere. Before any of that happened, Haynes had a fill-in job behind the drums in Louis Armstrong’s big band.
To have been employed by the four major stylistic innovators of jazz over a period stretching from pre-swing to post-bebop made Haynes unique. Perhaps just as remarkably, he carried on by playing and recording with such younger pace-setters as the guitarist Pat Metheny and the bassist Dave Holland.
