Joe Roland

Joe Roland earned recognition as a skilled vibraphonist drawn to bop during his most prominent years in jazz throughout the 1950s. He began his career on clarinet, enrolling at the Institute of Musical Art in New York for studies spanning 1937 to 1939. Roland took up xylophone in 1940, shifting to vibes a few years afterward and performing as a freelancer across New York. Embracing bop’s emerging ideas, he soon assembled his own forward-looking group. His sideman work placed him in the George Shearing Quintet from 1951 through 1953, alongside sessions with Howard McGhee and a stint in Artie Shaw & His Gramercy Five between 1953 and 1954. Later in the decade he also collaborated with Mat Mathews and Aaron Sachs. Leading his own dates, Roland cut two tracks for Rainbow in 1949, four selections backed by strings for Savoy in 1950, several titles on the Seeco label from 1953 to 1954, nine songs for Savoy in 1954, and an entire album with his quintet, which featured Freddie Redd, for Bethlehem in 1955.