Roy Brooks – The Free Slave (Muse/32 Jazz, 1972)

Roy Brooks (d); Woody Shaw (tr); George Coleman (ts); Hugh Lawson (p); Cecil McBee (b)

Recorded on April 26, 1970

Drummer Roy Brooks is yet another musician who grew up in Detroit and emerged from its fertile jazz scene.  During the 1960s, Brooks toured and recorded with Blue Mitchell, Stanley Turrentine, Shirley Scott, Yusef Lateef, Charles McPherson, and—most notably—Horace Silver.  Brooks was in Silver’s band from 1959 to 1964; he’s in the drummer’s chair on Silver's classic LP Song for My Father (Blue Note, 1965), as well as several other excellent Silver albums.

Brooks only recorded sporadically as a leader.  The Free Slave was his second LP.  Recorded live at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore in front of a vocal and supportive crowd, Brooks’ band sounds wonderful.  The concert was sponsored by the Left Bank Jazz Society, an organization founded by Vernon Welsh and Benny Kearse, two Baltimoreans who regularly brought the acclaimed jazz acts to the city.  The society also regularly recorded performances, although, for the most part, these recording were not made for commercial purposes.  [Many years later, several other recordings from Left Bank Jazz Society’s archives were leased by Joel Dorn and issued on his (now defunct) Label M imprint.  Featured artists included Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, Cedar Walton, Freddie Hubbard and Jimmy Heath, among others.]  The Free Slave is an exception.  Just two years later, producers Joe Fields and Don Schlitten released Brooks' music on their newly formed Muse Records label.  Brooks’ record was just the third release on their imprint.

As for the music, the front-line features two of the most important and interesting musicians of the decade in trumpeter Woody Shaw and tenor saxophonist George Coleman.  The rhythm section is equally strong, allowing the music to move seamlessly between darkly-burnished hard-bop and more groove-oriented sounds.  Brooks’ music is unpretentious, funky, and relatable—like his former bandleader Horace Silver’s—but it can also move a bit further afield, propelled by the expansive personalities of Shaw, Coleman, and bassist Cecil McBee.  The bassist also contributes one of the four tunes on the LP, (here titled) “Will Pan’s Walk,” an important composition that will reappear often in this survey.

Before the album’s final cut, the crowd shouts encouragement at the bandleader and band.  “Do your thang, Roy!  Do your thang!  We understand you, Roy!  Do your thang!”  And you really can hear the band grooving to their spirited encouragement.