LaRoca, Pete (Sims, Peter)

LaRoca, Pete (Sims, Peter), jazz drummer; b.N.Y., April 7, 1938. He played timpani in the junior high symphonic band and continued at the H.S. of Music and Art in Manhattan; he then played timbales with Latin bands (where he adopted the name LaRoca, or “the rock”), and finally jazz drums in a Catskills show at age 17. He continued playing through two years at the City Coll. of N.Y, then from 1957 to 1959 worked intermittently with Sonny Rollins, including a European tour in February 1959. He also played with Jackie McLean (with whom he recorded what some consider the first free-time drum solo), Tony Scott, and Slide Hampton (ca. February-April 1960). John Coltrane hired him for his first quartet gigs with Steve Kuhn (May 2nd through Aug. 1960), probably on the recommendation of Miles Davis. In September of 1960, Coltrane chose to use Billy Higgins on the West coast to save the cost of transporting LaRoca. He continued to work with Kuhn in the bands of Stan Getz (1961–62), but was eventually replaced by Roy Haynes), and in a trio. He also worked with Paul Bley, Marian McPartland, and Charles Lloyd. He was house drummer at Boston’s Jazz Workshop in 1963 and 1964, and also led his own groups. Around 1964-65 he did a quartet version of Ravel’s short opera L’Enfant et Les Sortileges. In 1965 he and Kuhn played with Art Farmer. By 1967, he was back in N.Y, driving a taxicab and planning to study law at N.Y.U. LaRoca is now a practicing attorney, specializing in entertainment law and other areas, using his birthname, Pete Sims. For many years he was not heard from musically, but around 1990 he began leading a group one night a week at Birdland, displaying all of his old brilliance

Discography

Basra (1965); Pete LaRoca (1965); Bliss! (1967); Turkish Women at the Bath (1967); Swingtime (1997). sonny clark:Sonny Clark Quintet (1957); Cool Struttin, ’ Vol. 1-2 (1958). kenny dorham:West 42nd Street (1961); Best of Kenny Dorham: Blue Note Years (1964). art farmer:To Sweden with Love (1964); Sing Me Softly of the Blues (1965). slide hampton:Sister Salvation (1960); Somethin’ Sanctified (1960). joehenderson:Best of the Blue Note Years (1963); Our Thing (1963); Page One (1963); Blue Note Years (1963); Ballads & Blues (1963). jackie mclean:New Soil (1959); Vertigo (1959); Bluesnik (1961). j.r. montrose:Message (1959); Straight Ahead (1959). sonny rollins/sonny roll-in S TR IO: Complete Blue Note Recordings (1956); More from the Vanguard (1957); Night at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 1 (1957); Night at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 2 (1957); Night at the Village Vanguard (1957); Si. Thomas 1959 (1993). george russell:Outer Thoughts (1960); Outer View (1962).

—Lewis Porter