Roy Brooks: Understanding

  Detroit drummer Roy Brooks’ 1972 Muse album The Free Slave, although not that well received at the time, is now lauded as “of vital importance” (www.allmusic.com) and “one of his best” (thevinylpress.com). The Free Spirit was recorded live in concert at Baltimore’s famed Left Bank Jazz Society in April 1970. Now we have a followup from later that same year, in the same venue. Understanding presents about two hours of music recorded on November 1, 1970, and it’s a valuable and very welcome addition to Brooks’ relatively sparse discography. Trumpeter Woody Shaw and bassist Cecil McBee return from the earlier date, joined here by Harold Mabern on piano and Carlos Garnett on tenor saxophone. Zev Feldman and co-producer Cory Weeds of Cellar Live Records, have done their usual bang-up job of assembling memorabilia and commissioning liner notes (from Mark Stryker, author of Jazz From Detroit) for the 36-page booklet. Weeds had conversations with McBee and drummer Louis Hayes, who recommended Brooks to Horace Silver back in 1959. Feldman interviewed Garnett as well as bassist Reggie Workman who worked with Brooks in the Seventies. There are also short reminiscences by alto saxophonist Charles McPherson (he and Brooks went to the same high school), journalist Herb Boyd (a lifelong friend and another high school pal), and Jahra Michelle McKinney, archivist and Executive Director of the Detroit Sound Conservancy (which will benefit for all proceeds from sales of Understanding). By all accounts, you had to give it all your all when you played the Left Bank or the audiences would let you know that it was not happening. McBee tells Weeds that it was “like playing for family.” I have yet to hear a set recorded there that didn’t stand out for excitement, including releases by Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, and Freddie Hubbard with Jimmy Heath. Add Understanding to the list of excellent Left Bank shows. While the sound is a little shaky at first, it rapidly improves. The band is on fire from the get-go, opening with Brooks’ own Prelude to Understanding segueing into Understanding, forty-odd minutes of hard driving jazz. Taking a brief breather, Brooks introduces the group before they launch into a ferocious 21-minute version of Charlie Parker’s Billie’s Bounce, an intriguing selection for the era, underscoring Brooks and company’s roots in bebop. Brooks is fantastic on this number. Woody Shaw, introduced by Brooks as his “right-hand man,” composed Zoltan. The piece first appeared on Larry Young’s Unity (Blue Note, 1965) and it leads off the second disc. Shaw is magnificent in his bold and brassy solo, and Brooks’ inspired drumming provokes him to greater and greater heights. That ends the first set, and a tired quintet takes a break before returning to the stage for 32 minutes of Garnett’s Taurus Woman. It’s another uptempo scorcher featuring the saxophonist’s best playing of the session and another inventive and furiously exploratory solo by Shaw, propelled by the Mabern-McBee-Brooks juggernaut. A brief but frenzied investigation of The Theme brings the show to a close. It was one hell of a great day at the Left Bank Jazz Society when the Roy Brooks quintet hit the stage at four in the afternoon in 1970, and I’m glad to have the music available for everyone half a century later. I’m sure I’m not the only jazz fan wondering what other treasures lurk in their archives ... 

ReelToReal RTR-CD-007 (also available as a 3-lp set); Woody Shaw (tpt) Cecil Garnett (ts) Harold Mabern (p) Cecil McBee (b) Roy Brooks (d); Baltimore, MD, November 1, 1970; Disc 1 (63:17): Introduction/ Prelude to Understanding/ Billie’s Bounce. Disc 2 (60:15): Zoltan/ Taurus Woman/ The Theme. cellarlive.com