***1/2 Roy Brooks

THE FREE SLAVE

(32 Jazz)

This is jazz that moans and sweats, a vigorous 1970 live session led by the superbly creative and quite unsung drummer Roy Brooks. At his peak here -- after stints with Horace Silver, Yusef Lateef, James Moody, and Pharoah Sanders -- Brooks revs through the funky, fatback beat of the title track, turns trumpeter Woody Shaw loose on the free-flowing "Understanding," lets bassist Cecil McBee and pianist Hugh Lawson run wild through McBee's "Will Pan's Walk," and features the brilliant tenor sax of George Coleman everywhere he can but especially in his own tribute to his drum mentor Max Roach, "Five for Max." What's beautiful is the way all the players split the difference between free jazz and R&B. They make a sound that leaps into the creative stratosphere, yet wallows in strong grooves and generous melodies. And raucous energy. Brooks is a burning sparkplug, firing to his own marvelous, spontaneous patterns. So the playing is full of surprises, not just from his talking kit, explosive cymbals, and singing saw, but in the pure bursts of invention his patter inspires from his bandmates.

-- Ted Drozdowski