Roy Brooks - Beat (Verve By Request) Vinyl LP

Verve By Request Series features transfers from analog tapes and remastered on 180-gram vinyl, pressed at Third Man in Detroit.

Recorded at Motown's legendary Hitsville USA studio for Workshop Jazz — Berry Gordy's short-lived jazz imprint — Beat marks Roy Brooks' debut as a leader and finds the innovative drummer fusing his hard bop roots with a Motor City soul-jazz groove. Brooks, who served as a sideman for Horace Silver, Yusef Lateef, and Chet Baker, among others, is joined by fellow Detroit natives George Bohannon (trombone) and Hugh Lawson (piano), along with his Horace Silver Quintet bandmates: Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Junior Cook (tenor saxophone), and Eugene Taylor (bass). Together, they deliver a high-energy set that features tracks written by Brooks, Joe Henderson, and Duke Pearson. Notably, the track "Soulsphere" was composed by Alice McLeod (erroneously credited as "McCloud" on the sleeve), who would blaze a new musical path a few years later as the incomparable Alice Coltrane. Hailed by AllMusic as "a record of uncommon scope and reach," Beat is the first official reissue of any Workshop Jazz album.