Roy Brooks - Understanding (July 23, 2021 Cellar Live)

Understanding, a blazing 1970 concert recording featuring the Detroit-born master percussionist Roy Brooks leading a gifted quintet through its spirited paces at Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom, will be released by Cellar Music Group's archival imprint, Reel to Real Recordings on July 17 as a limited edition 3 LP set exclusively at independent record stores for Record Store Day and as on 2 CDs/digital on July 23.

Comprising more than two hours of expansive performances averaging 20 minutes in length, the potent date was recorded by Left Bank Jazz Society and stars trumpeter Woody Shaw, tenor saxophonist Carlos Garnett, pianist Harold Mabern, and bassist Cecil McBee.

All proceeds from the release — produced with the cooperation of McBee and Garnett and the estates of Brooks, Mabern, and Shaw — will go directly to the Detroit Sound Conservancy, a non-profit organization founded in 2012 and devoted to the preservation, education, conservation, and place keeping of the Motor City’s musical heritage.

Born in 1938, Roy Brooks is perhaps best known as a sideman. He spent five years with pianist Horace Silver’s storied hard bop combo, appearing on the popular Song for My Father, and also worked behind Chet Baker, Yusef Lateef, and Charles Mingus, and alongside Max Roach in the percussion ensemble M’Boom.

Beyond his formidable, gale-force attack on the traps, Brooks — who died in his hometown in 2005 — delighted audiences with flights on the musical saw (heard on the present recording) and even invented a device, the “breath-a-tone,” with which he could change the pitch of his drums as he played. Sadly, the musician’s career was thrown off track in later years by severe mental illness. But the Famous Ballroom date displays him at the height of his considerable powers.

In his comprehensive liner notes for the collection, historian Mark Stryker, author of Jazz from Detroit (University of Michigan Press, 2019), writes that Understanding “shines a long-overdue spotlight on Brooks. A product of Detroit’s mid-century jazz explosion, Brooks was a deeply swinging drummer of uncommon creativity, flexibility, fire and conceptual imagination.”

Led off by a 42-minute performance encompassing the Brooks-composed prelude and title track, Understanding roars through compositions by Shaw (“Zoltan,” first heard on organist Larry Young’s 1965 classic Unity) and Garnett (“Taurus Woman”) and a furious take on Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” before an involved, vocal audience. Projected at a fever pitch, the music operates on the cusp between the ‘60s quintet innovations of Miles Davis (whose “The Theme” closes the gig) and the free-form explorations of John Coltrane and his acolytes.

Understanding is filled out by intimate written remembrances by a pair of Brooks’ classmates at Detroit’s Northwestern High School, journalist Herb Boyd and alto saxophonist Charles McPherson. 

1. Introduction 00:25

2. Prelude To Understanding 21:34

3. Understanding 20:10

4. Billie's Bounce 21:06

5. Zoltan 23:18

6. Taurus Woman 32:25

7. The Theme 04:31

Roy Brooks – drums

Carlos Garnett – tenor saxophone

Woody Shaw - trumpet

Harold Mabern – piano

Cecil McBee – bass

Recorded Live at The Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, MD on November 1, 1970

Produced for release by CORY WEEDS and ZEV FELDMAN

Executive Producer: RAYMON TORCHINKSY

Associate Producer: RAYMON TORCHINKSY and JOHN FOWLER

Project Assistance: ZAK SHELBY-SZYSZKO

Sound Restoration by CHRIS GESTRIN

Original Recording Engineer: VERNON WELSH

Cover Photo by BOB CRAWFORD

Art Direction and design: JOHN SELLARDS

Album Package Editor: SHARON MCINNIS

Production Manager: CORY WEEDS

Photo Research: ZEV FELDMAN and CORY WEEDS

Extra special thanks to Carlos Garnett, Cecil McBee and Raheem Brooks.

Dedicated to the memories of Roy Brooks, Woody Shaw and Harold Mabern

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ERIC DOLPHY - Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions (RESONANCE RECORDS 2018)

The first official release of previously-unissued Eric Dolphy studio recordings in over 30 years, the project includes 85-minutes of music that's never before been released!

The Deluxe Limited-Edition, 180-gram 3-LP gatefold set will be released exclusively for Record Store Day's Black Friday Event on November 23, 2018.

The deluxe 3-CD and digital editions will be available on January 25, 2019.

Captured after leaving Prestige Records, and just before the timeless classic Out To Lunch! album, this release contains the under-appreciated masterpiece albums Conversations and Iron Man recorded in New York City in July of 1963. Originally produced by Alan Douglas, the tapes had been stored in a suitcase with Dolphy's personal belongings and given to friends Hale and Juanita Smith before he embarked on his fateful European trip in 1964. Five decades later, the suitcase was given to flutist/educator James Newton who then connected with Zev Feldman at Resonance and began working on this definitive edition of Dolphy's 1963 New York studio sessions with the only copies of these tapes known to exist. 

The project features jazz greats such as saxophonist Sonny Simmons, trumpeter Woody Shaw, bassist Richard Davis,  NEA Jazz Master vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, saxophonist Clifford Jordan, along with flutist William "Prince" Lasha, bassoonist Garvin Bushell, bassist Eddie Kahn, and drummers J.C. Moses and Charles Moffett.  The exhaustive 100-page booklet includes rare and previously unpublished photos, essays by Dolphy scholars and interviews with jazz icons.

THE PACKAGE

The LP/CD packages are beautifully designed by longtime Resonance designer Burton Yount and include exhaustive booklets replete with rare and never-before-published photos (several of which are in color!) by Chuck Stewart, Jean-Pierre Leloir, Val Wilmer, Hans Harzheim, Lennart Steen, Roger Marshutz and many others, plus reproductions of the original album covers for Conversations and Iron Man. The five essays cover different aspects of Eric Dolphy and this music, starting with co-producers Zev Feldman and James Newton’s accounts of how this album came to be and what Dolphy’s music means to this world. Newton says in his essay, “Eric Dolphy taught us to listen much more carefully to voices from all around the world, but never to forget that the substantially personal and complex feelings within field hollers remained in the mix.” Jazz scholar and author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, Robin D.G. Kelley, gives us the full historical context of these recordings and Dolphy in 1963. Japanese Dolphy scholar Masakazu Sato and Douglas label manager Michael Lemesre give us accounts of Dolphy’s impact in Japan and of producer Alan Douglas’ role in these recordings and relationship with Dolphy.

We’ve gathered a large congregation of voices to reflect, remember and reexamine the person, the music and the legacy of Eric Dolphy. The saxophone colossus himself, Sonny Rollins, recounted first meeting Dolphy when he asked to sit in with Max Roach’s band. Roach liked to embarrass young musicians who asked to sit in by playing a tune at an extremely fast tempo and running them off the stage. Of course, Dolphy was no average musician and he hung in there the whole way through the tune. From that point forward, Rollins knew Dolphy was a serious musician to be reckoned with. The sole living members of the band interviewed for this release, saxophonist Sonny Simmons and Richard Davis, remember Dolphy as being “a Saint” and “angelic” respectively. Close family friend Juanita Smith gives a detailed account of the time she and her husband, Hale Smith, spent with Eric, including the anecdote about how Eric got the enigmatic bump on his head that we see so clearly in photographs from his later years (including our Chuck Stewart photo on the album cover).

The words and thoughts of no less than 17 musicians – from jazz legend John Coltrane to the Pulitzer prize- winning saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill – are represented in this deluxe tribute to Eric Dolphy and this archival discovery, and paint a complex portrait of this heralded, loved and misunderstood artist. Acclaimed flutist Nicole Mitchell says, “I don’t know if there’s a better way to start listening to someone improvising on the flute than to hear Eric Dolphy . . . He really was — bar none — one of the greatest flute players of his time, and of any time before him.” Award-winning saxophonist Steve Coleman stated bluntly about Dolphy, “He’s a virtuoso. There’s nothing else to say about that. It’s amazing that he could get that kind of fluency on different instruments. He’s the first guy I heard to play the shit out of the bass clarinet, the saxophone and the flute.”

LP/CD 1 — Conversations 

1. Jitterbug Waltz (7:18)

2. Music Matador (9:37)

3. Love Me (3:22)

4. Alone Together (13:36)

5. Muses for Richard Davis (Previously Unissued 1) (7:39)

6. Muses for Richard Davis (Previously Unissued 2) (8:31)

LP/CD 2 — Iron Man 

1. Iron Man (9:14)

2. Mandrake (4:47)

3. Come Sunday (6:28)

4. Burning Spear (11:59)

5. Ode to Charlie Parker (8:04)

6. A Personal Statement (Bonus Track) (15:02) *

LP/CD 3 — Previously Unissued Studio Recordings

1. Music Matador (Alternate Take) (8:05)

2. Love Me (Alternate Take 1) (2:27)

3. Love Me (Alternate Take 2) (3:43)

4. Alone Together (Alternate Take) (12:14)

5. Jitterbug Waltz (Alternate Take) (9:36)

6. Mandrake (Alternate Take) (6:48)

7. Burning Spear (Alternate Take) (10:31)

Personnel:

Eric Dolphy – alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet

William "Prince" Lasha – flute

Huey "Sonny" Simmons – alto saxophone

Clifford Jordan – soprano saxophone

Woody Shaw – trumpet

Garvin Bushell – bassoon

Bobby Hutcherson – vibes

Richard Davis – bass

Eddie Kahn – bass

J.C. Moses – drums

Charles Moffett – drums

Resonance Records is a multi-GRAMMY® Award-winning label (most recently for John Coltrane’s Offering: Live at Temple University for "Best Album Notes") that prides itself in creating beautifully designed, informative packaging to accompany previously unreleased recordings by the jazz icons who grace Resonance's catalog. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Resonance Records is a division of Rising Jazz Stars, Inc. a California 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation created to discover the next jazz stars and advance the cause of jazz. Current Resonance Artists include Polly Gibbons, Eddie Daniels, Tamir Hendelman, Christian Howes and Donald Vega.

Louis Hayes & Junior Cook (with Woody Shaw, Ronnie Mathews, Stafford James, Guilherme Franco) - Ichi-Ban 1976 (2015)

Taken from a live performance of the short-lived Louis Hayes-Junior Cook Quintet, this recording features some fine hard bop. The two horns are trumpeter Woody Shaw and tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, who are complemented by a fine rhythm section headed by drummer Louis Hayes. Shaw is in good form, and one of the joys of this album is the chance to hear Shaw as a sideman in the mid-'70s in a hard bop context not unlike his own small groups. Cook plays well, and he stretches on each piece, although his solos are not remarkable in any way. Hayes takes the customary drums solos to which he is entitled as a leader, and proves once again his solid feel for the genre. The limited recording time (under forty minutes) is a shame since the group is such a pleasure to hear. The music retains its excitement years after it was recorded, a tribute to both the choice of tunes and the quality of playing. The other members of group are pianist Ronnie Matthews, bassist Stafford James, and percussionist Guilherme Franco, each of whom makes adequate, though hardly distinguished, contributions.

Ichi-Ban

Pannonica

Brothers And Sisters

The Moontrane

Book's Bossa

Louis Hayes, drums

Junior Cook, tenor sax

Woody Shaw, trumpet

Ronnie Mathews, piano

Stafford James, bass

Guilherme Franco, percussion

BUY THIS ALBUM!!!

JAVI