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

Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis: Ow! Live At The Penthouse

Tenor saxophonists Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis co-led a fairly successful quintet that recorded ten albums for Prestige Records and Riverside Record’s Jazzland imprint between September 1960 and February 1962. The band’s last recording session, in May 1962, was an experiment in balladry which went unissued until I had the pleasure of compiling Pisces, released for the first time in 2004. The same group that recorded Pisces, with Horace Parlan on piano, Buddy Catlett on bass, and Art Taylor on drums, hit the road that spring, and the producers at Reel To Real Records have unearthed an hour of music from that tour. Ow! Live At The Penthouse is another set extracted from the cache of tapes made from the original radio broadcasts from the club on Seattle’s KING-FM, and the music is just as great as you’d expect from this crew. Nobody energized a band quite like drummer Taylor, and it’s a total joy to hear him, starting with the terrifying tempo of the two-tenor classic Blues Up and Down, complete with the drums and horns trading the fastest four bars I’ve heard in some time. Dizzy Gillespie’s Ow!, Ary Barroso’s Bahia, and Edgar Sampson’s 1935 tune Blue Lou round out the first show. It’s an intense dose of hard bop, and if you heard it on the radio on May 30, you surely would have wanted to make the scene at the club to experience the quintet in person. The group is back on the air one week later with a different batch of tunes, once again kicking off their half-hour with a burner, Second Balcony Jump, reprising the Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons feature with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in the mid-Forties. A lengthy exposition of How Am I to Know? is next, followed by a ballad feature for Griffin, Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady. The set concludes with Lester Young’s Tickle Toe, a popular blowing vehicle over the years and the Griffin-Davis unit does not disappoint with a forceful version powered by Art Taylor’s potent drumming. Co-producers Zev Feldman and Cory Weeds have put together another exemplary package. The 28-page booklet includes plenty of photos and memorabilia, liner notes by Ted Panken, plus reminiscences by Bob Wilke, who produced the original broadcasts, and Charlie Puzzo, Jr., son of the Penthouse Club’s proprietor. Also featured are observations by pianist Michael Weiss and drummer Kenny Washington, both of whom played with Griffin, and saxophonist James Carter, who opines on two of his musical heroes. A total gas from start to finish, Ow! is not to be missed.
Reel To Real RTR-CD-003; Johnny Griffin, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (ts) Horace Parlan (p) Buddy Catlett (b) Art Taylor (d); Seattle, WA, May 30, 1962* or June 6, 1962; Intermission Riff*/ Blues Up and Down*/ Ow!*/ Spoken Introduction*/ Bahia*/ Spoken Introduction*/ Blue Lou*/ Second Balcony Jump/ Spoken Outro/ How Am I to Know?/ Spoken Introduction/ Sophisticated Lady/ Spoken Introduction/ Tickle Toe/ Intermission Riff; 58:44. cellarlive.com

Cannonball Adderley: Swingin’ In Seattle: Live at the Penthouse 1966-1967

In the Sixties, disc jockey Jim Wilke had a regular jazz show on Seattle radio station KING-FM, often featuring half-hour remote broadcasts from the city’s Penthouse club. Resonance Records put out a Wes Montgomery CD drawn from Wilke’s archives, and now Zev Feldman, the producer of that set, has teamed up with Cory Weeds to form a new label they call Reel To Real. Drawing once again on Wilke’s tape collection, their first release is Swingin’ In Seattle: Live at the Penthouse 1966-1967, 73 glorious minutes of the Cannonball Adderley quintet with brother Nat Adderley on cornet and a rhythm section of pianist Joe Zawinul, bassist Victor Gaskin, and drummer Roy McCurdy. This unit could swing like mad, and they prove it time and again in this set on tunes like Jimmy Heath’s Big “P”, Cannonball’s own Sticks, and Zawinul’s 74 Miles Away. Long-time fans will recall snippets of Cannonball speaking on some of his early Riverside live recording, and so the producers of Swingin’ In Seattle have wisely decided to include many of Cannonball’s introductions and comments on the songs. Just like the Resonance releases, the package includes a lengthy booklet. There are period photos, notes by Feldman and journalist Bill Kopp, plus interviews with Olga Adderley (Cannonball’s widow), drummer Roy McCurdy, and saxophonist Vincent Herring. While that’s all well and good, it would have been nice to include the names of the composers in the label copy. There’s also the problem of pinning down the actual recording dates. The back cover has one set of dates which are contradicted in the notes. But it’s really the music that counts, and this document of one of the most celebrated jazz groups of the era is a most welcome addition to their stellar discography.
Reel To Real RTRCD001; Nat Adderley (cnt) Cannonball Adderley (as) Joe Zawinul (p) Victor Gaskin (b) Roy McCurdy (d); Seattle, WA, October 6 & 13, 1966 and June 15 & 22, 1967 (probably; the back cover and liner notes do not agree); Jim Wilke Intro/ Big “P”/ Spoken Outro/ Spoken Intro/ The Girl Next Door/ Spoken Intro/ Sticks/ Spoken Outro/ Spoken Intro/ The Morning of the Carnival (Manhã de Carnaval)/ Spoken Outro/ Spoken Intro/ Somewhere/ Jim Wilke Intro/ 74 Miles Away/ Spoken Outro/ Back Home Blues/ Hippodelphia/ Set-closing Outro; 73:03. cellarlive.com