Roy Brooks - Beat - Verve By Request LP

Recorded for Berry Gordy's short-lived Workshop Jazz imprint and recorded at the Hitsville USA studio, Roy Brooks (joined by fellow Detroit natives George Bohannon and Hugh Lawson, along with Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, and Eugene Taylor) injects a Motor City soul-jazz groove into the hard-bop root of this engaging 1964 album. Verve By Request Series features transfers from analog tapes, remastered on 180-gram vinyl, and pressed at Third Man in Detroit.

...Roy Brooks' simply but authoritatively titled Beat fuses the intellectual rigors of the modern idiom with the physical prowess of soul-jazz to create a record of uncommon scope and reach....Brooks channels influences spanning the breadth of the Motor City scene, resulting in a clutch of challenging but engaging performances with the unmistakable patina of the embryonic Motown sound. While their technical proficiency is stunning, Brooks' rhythms never lose sight of the almighty groove, and for its hard bop stridency, the record has the proverbial good beat and you can dance to it.