Joe Roland

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Joe Roland (b. May 17, 1920) is an American jazz vibraphonist.

Roland began as a clarinetist, attending the Institute of Musical Art from 1937 to 1939. He started on xylophone in 1940 and began playing vibraphone in the middle of the decade, playing in jazz clubs in New York City. Influenced by the nascent bebop movement, Roland put together his own ensembles late in the decade, and in the 1950s he played with Oscar Pettiford (1951), George Shearing (1951-53), Howard McGhee, and Artie Shaw and his Gramercy Five (1953-54), Mat Mathews (1956), and Aaron Sachs (1956).

Roland recorded occasionally as a leader; he released on Rainbow in 1949, on Savoy (1950, 1954), Seeco (1953-54), and Bethlehem (1955).