After Miles Davis plugged in and released albums like In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, jazz became divided into two groups; those like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea who joined the fusion revolution, or the shrinking minority of musicians, like drummer Roy Brooks, who stayed loyal to acoustic jazz, but realized they had to offer an acceptable alternative.
What conclusions Brooks and artists such as Woody Shaw/tp, Carlos Garnett/ts, Harold Mabern/p and Cecil McBee/b came to was that they offered an amalgam of post bop/modal music that was filled with torrid rhythms, incendiary solos and an avalanche of energy. This two disc set, recorded back in 1970 at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, MD, has Brooks just coming off of the session of his high voltage album The Free Slave with pretty close to the same band delivering essentially 5 songs clocking in at around 20-32 minutes each. The sparks are flying!
“Prelude to Understanding”, the segue into the album’s “Understanding” is 21 minutes of Brooks holding tight to the modal reins as Shaw intensely pokes holes in the ozone layer over the avalanche of Mabern, McBee and Brooks, followed by a deep pocket of soul searching by Mabern and an illumating aria by McBee. A tip of the hat to bebop is given on a dark, searing and blistering take of “Billie’s Bounce” as Shaw and Brooks go mano a mano.
Brooks’ sticks are nimble during his solo of “Zoltan” while Garnett creates thunder and lightning. You won’t need to yell “More Cowbell” for Brooks’ stampeding work as he links arms with Mabern on “Taurus Woman” with everyone getting a chance to stretch out on this visceral earthquake. A final coda of “The Theme” shows allegiance to the teams roots with Shaw as sleek as a leather suite. The resistance against electronics was held at the gates on this night in Baltimore, holding on until the neo-conservatives took the mantel.