Max Roach, the visionary drummer, composer, and bandleader who was one of the most important musicians in the history of jazz and American music, died in his sleep yesterday morning in Manhattan following a long illness. He was 83.

Roach was one of the founding fathers of the movement known as bebop or modern jazz, and he was the drummer most associated with Charlie Parker, the central figure in the bop revolution of the mid-1940s. In the ’50s, Roach became one of the first bop drummers to establish himself as an essential bandleader, and he most famously collaborated with Clifford Brown, with whom he co-led another of the all-time great jazz ensembles. In the ’60s, Roach expanded his canvas both musically and contextually, turning to larger works in suite form, which were increasingly politically motivated. He continued to find new forms to work in and explore new avenues of expression almost up until his 80th birthday.

As a small boy, Maxwell Lemuel Roach and his family moved from North Carolina to Brooklyn, where the youngster grew up studying drums and piano (well enough to occasionally work as a keyboardist early on). By the time he was in high school, Roach was part of a clique of forward-thinking Brooklyn musicians; he was encouraged both by Count Basie’s drummer, Jo Jones, and Duke Ellington’s drummer, Sonny Greer, and was even called upon to substitute for Greer in Ellington’s Orchestra on one occasion. Although Roach didn’t play regularly with Ellington, 20 years later, he and legendary bassist Charles Mingus worked with Ellington on “Money Jungle,” one of the Maestro’s most celebrated later albums.

By 1943, Roach was playing regularly in the after-hours clubs of Harlem, where bebop was born; he recorded for the first time that December with the saxophone pioneer ColemanHawkins. In1944–45, Roach went on the road with the big band of alto saxophonist Benny Carter, and also began his long working relationship with Charlie Parker. With the rise of bebop in the mid-’40s, Roach became the most celebrated drummer on the jazz scene, regularly winning polls and raves in the music press. He was a superlative musician (he later studied composition formally), possessing both the musical acumen and sheer technique necessary to help define the role of the drums in the new musical language of bebop, in which the percussionist no longer hid in the background; thanks partly to Roach, the drums were increasingly elevated to the role of soloist, as well as to driving the ensemble in an entirely new way.

Roach remained with Parker’s quintet (which also included the young Miles Davis, with whom he also played on the famous “Birth of the Cool” album) off and on for nearly 10 years. He accompanied Parker on his famous 1949 visit to Paris, at which time the drummer recorded his first session as a leader, using Parker’s quintet but with James Moody in place of Bird himself. His last major appearance with Parker was the famous 1953 Toronto concert, which also featured trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Bud Powell, and Mingus. By that time, Roach and Mingus had already co-founded Debut Records, for which Roach recorded his first album.

In 1954, Roach began co-leading a quintet with the brilliant 23-year-old trumpeter Clifford Brown. For the next two years, until the trumpeter’s tragic early death in a car crash, this group, which also starred the equally prodigious Sonny Rollins, once again helped shift the overall direction of jazz. Like Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the Brown-Roach band did much to define the new stratum of modern jazz known as hard bop.

Roach continued to experiment with new compositions and unusual time signatures — he was one of the only musicians ever to play bebop in waltz time. Roach also continued playing sessions and live dates with all the stars of the music — Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk, Thad Jones, J J. Johnson, Kenny Dorham, Oscar Pettiford, Rollins, and Mingus — even while leading his own bands.

In 1957, Roach worked for the first time with the singer Abbey Lincoln, who would, in 1960, become his second wife, and a key part of his music. In these years, Roach made his most dramatic statements in a series of albumlength works that were often inspired by the civil rights movement: “It’s Time,” “Percussion Bitter Sweet,” and, “We Insist! Freedom Now! Suite.”

From the 1970s onward, Roach was one of the few so-called elder statesmen of jazz to be receptive of the new free jazz movement; he recorded two different sets of live duets with avant-gardist Anthony Braxton. Roach was encouraging of virtually any original idea: He founded M’Boom, an ensemble consisting of nine percussionists on an international battery of instruments, recorded an album with a large choir, another with a symphony orchestra, and still others with his Double Quartet, featuring a string section featuring his daughter, Maxine, on viola. His last outstanding ensemble was the So What Brass Quintet.

Roach, who was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment of the Arts in 1984, also frequently reunited with old friends; one of Gillespie’s last great albums was a double-length set of duets taped live in Paris with Roach in 1989.

Approaching 80, Roach’s inspirational drumming was silenced by illness in his final years; in 2005, he attended the ceremony in which he was accepted as a member of the Nesuhi Ertegun Hall of Fame at Jazz at Lincoln Center, although he was, by that time, confined to a wheelchair. After 60 years at the forefront of jazz, no one had worked harder or done more for the music than Max Roach.

He is survived by three daughters, Maxine, Ayo, and Dara, and two sons, Raoul and Darryl.

wfriedwald@nysun.com