Jazz Articles about Roy Brooks

About Roy Brooks

Album Review

Charles Mingus: The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's

Read "The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
April 24, 2022

After the emotional and economic bankruptcies of the late 1960s that nearly took him out of the picture entirely, 1972 broke well for Charles Mingus. He had re-signed with Columbia and delivered the revered Let My Children Hear Music. (He would, a year later, be part of the great Clive Davis jazz purge of 1973 which included Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and, some argue Ornette Coleman.) Grants and commissions were coming in and his music, in all its bold, gnarly, ...

Album Review

Charles Mingus: The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's

Read "The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 12, 2022

Professionally recorded for Columbia Records, but never released, this live concert from London's Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is seeing the light of day some fifty years later, as well as marking the centennial celebration of Charles Mingus' birth. The music was never released, not because it was unworthy (it is indeed worthy), but because Mingus along with Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Keith Jarrett and Ornette Coleman were let go by the label's chief, Clive Davis. Only Miles Davis survived the ...

Album Review

Roy Brooks: Understanding

Read "Understanding" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 26, 2021

Il doppio compact di Roy Brooks pubblicato da qualche giorno (anche in lussuoso triplo vinile e in versione digitale) non è solo un tributo a uno dei massimi batteristi dei decenni sessanta/ottanta. Registrato il 1° novembre 1970 a Baltimora, presenta uno dei concerti più esaltanti del jazz contemporaneo, un hard bop intriso d'avanguardia—in particolare John Coltrane—che si sviluppa con intensità febbrile per due ore. Il merito va al misconosciuto batterista di Detroit e al suo quintetto comprendente Woody Shaw alla ...

Album Review

Roy Brooks: Understanding

Read "Understanding" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
July 17, 2021

Roy Brooks was a preeminent hard-bop drummer who early on participated in seminal recording dates led by Horace Silver, Yusef Lateef and Sonny Stitt. In this release entitled Understanding, produced by Cory Weeds and Zev Feldman for Reel To Real Records, Brooks is documented live by The Left Bank Jazz Society at The Famous Ballroom in Baltimore on November 1, 1970. The limited-edition 180 gram 3-LP gatefold set of previously unreleased material, features a stellar band including trumpeter Woody Shaw, ...