ROY BROOKS

THE FREE SLAVE

Time Traveler Records

Roy Brooks, drums; Hugh Lawson, piano; Cecil McBee, bass; Woody Shaw, trumpet; George Coleman, tenor saxophone.

Zev Feldman has done it again. Heralded as a jazz detective, the producer and music sleuth has once again uncovered another precious diamond from jazz history.  This album features the amazing Detroit drummer, Roy Brooks.  It’s a 1972 recording that originally was released on the Muse label.

With the piano playing repetitively, like a heartbeat underneath the brilliance of George Coleman’s tenor saxophone solo, the first tune unwinds, a percussive ball of energy rolling across my listening room. Brooks has composed three of the four tunes on this album.  His drums lead the way, propelling the music forward like a hurricane at the back of a fishing schooner. As always, Brooks is melodic and lyrical on his instrument. I was lucky enough to see this master drummer in person in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan.  He often performed at the Minor Key, a beatnik establishment that did not serve alcohol.  Consequently, teens like myself could attend the various jam sessions and jazz concerts to soak up the jazz. We were privy to experience huge talents like Roy Brooks, Yusef Lateef, Rashid Ali and Miles Davis up close and personal. On this title tune, you can tell where Eddie Harris may have gotten the influence to much later create his hit record with Les McCann, “Compared to What.”

Jazz is arguably one of the most complex examples of the Black American experience, using freedom as the catalyst to not only create music, but to create an artform like no other. Jazz is embraced by cultures worldwide and heralded as America’s only pure classical musical contribution to the world. The bebop music that Roy Brooks and his celebrity band members played was an act of rebellion. This music was like Hip-Hop is to R&B music.

Jazz moved away from the big band, melodic, swing bands, into a more controversial freedom and improvisational era. Roy Brooks was part of the crew that shifted the spotlight away from dance bands and frontline singers to smaller, more avant-garde groups like quartets, quintets and even trios.  Bebop is a byproduct of traditional jazz and orchestrated jazz.  Roy Brooks was a huge force in that transition.

On Track #2, called “Understanding” you hear his multi-rhythms coloring the piece, while always pushing it forward.  The Brooks drum licks splash like hot lava, burning through this number and prodding his musical compatriots to reach for freedom in higher places.  He ends this piece with single gong tones. They call the listener, pulling me by the ear into his mindset. The gongs demand I lean forward and into the music.

This intensity continues on “Will Pan’s Walk” by Cecil McBee.  The band plays at a raucus pace, peeling back the air around the stage with such determination, power and concentration that the ‘live’ audience begins shouting.  Suddenly the jazz crowd is transformed spiritually. They are back in the black church, catching the holy spirit.  This tune features drummer Roy Brooks at his best, in conversation with bassist Cecil McBee.  First the drums explode, sticks rolling around the skins and cymbals in a frenzy of excellence and creativity.  Then McBee enters on bass, telling his own important story; giving us his take on the tune. When Hugh Lawson takes a solo his fingers move faster than I can drum my own atop my office desk.  How can he play that swiftly, I wonder? Woody Shaw soaks up the energy in the room and spews it out from the bell of his horn, during an exciting trumpet solo.

This is an album for all seasons!  It re-establishes the genius and stamina of Roy Brooks as both a composer and drum master. Surrounded by this crème de la crème of jazz musicians, his recording reminds me of the high standards and amazing creativity that blossomed from an exciting explosion of Bebop. It’s a memorable time of musical freedom.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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