ROY BROOKS
Genres: Avant-Garde Jazz, Hard Bop, Classic Fusion, World Fusion • United States

Roy Brooks, drummer, born September 3 1938; died November 15 2005 In being primarily inspired by Elvin Jones, and performing in the M'Boom all-drum ensemble alongside Max Roach, Roy Brooks, who has died aged 67, associated himself with two generations of the drummer's art. He shared his models' advanced techniques, musical breadth, capacity to fire up a band, and their perception of the New World evolution of traditional African music. On the percussion expositions he developed during the 1990s, Brooks might back-project videos of African-American history, play the sound of a bouncing basketball alongside an African drum, a xylophone or a musical saw - with the last he was an eloquent performer. But he was first of all a formidable, straight-ahead jazz drummer, appearing from the late 1950s to the mid-70s with such influential modernists as Yusef Lateef, Horace Silver, Stanley Turrentine, Wes Montgomery, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus and Chet Baker. Born read more...