Pete La Roca (born as Peter Sims) was a powerful and distinctive drummer who created the pulse for some of jazz's leading figures from the late 1950s through the 1960s.



With an effervescent time feel and an alert style that could turn an accompanying role into a running commentary, Pete La Roca Sims was well-suited to the dynamism of the postbop era.



Working as Pete La Roca, Peter Sims appeared on a handful of classic albums of the period, notably by the tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson. 'Basra', an album he made for Blue Note in 1965, is widely regarded as a classic.



Peter Sims was born on April 7, 1938, in Manhattan, New York. He grew up in Harlem, surrounded by jazz: his stepfather was a trumpeter, and his uncle managed a suite of rehearsal studios. Peter had his first professional experience as a timbale player on the latin dance-band circuit, where he adopted his stage surname, La Roca ("the Rock").



He transitioned to the drum kit at 17. Two years later, on the recommendation of the pioneering bebop drummer Max Roach, he played what he would later recall as his first jazz engagement, with Sonny Rollins. Part of that performance would be immortalized on the Sonny Rollins record 'Night at the Village Vanguard', one of the bedrock live albums in jazz, though the drummer on most of the tracks is Elvin Jones.



Pete's drumming can also be heard on recordings by Charles Lloyd, Sonny Clark, Slide Hampton, Marian McPartland, Steve Kuhn, Stan Getz, Jaki Byard, Booker Little, Paul Bley, George Russell, Mose Allison and others.



During the spring and summer of 1960, Pete Sims worked in an early iteration of the John Coltrane Quartet. He was similarly a short-lived founding member of Stan Getz’s acclaimed early-1960s quartet. (His replacement in the Coltrane band was Mr. Jones; in the Getz ensemble, it was Roy Haynes.)



Though he brushed up against experimentalism, free jazz held little appeal for Pete Sims, and jazz-rock even less. This, combined with his growing impatience with sideman work, gradually resulted in dwindling opportunities.



He drove a taxi for five years while studying law at New York University, and then became a contract lawyer. When 'Turkish Women at the Bath' was reissued without permission under Mr. Corea's name, as 'Bliss!', he successfully sued.



Pete La Roca began playing semi-regularly again in 1979, using his real last name Sims and mentoring younger musicians, notably the saxophonist David Liebman. And he doubled down on his stubborn adherence to swing rhythm. The name of his working band was Swingtime; that was also the title of his final album, released on Blue Note in 1997.



Pete La Roca Sims died of lung cancer in Manhattan, New York on November 19, 2012. He was 74.