Kinda Vague

Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Wynton Kelly (piano), Sam Jones (bass) and Roy Brooks (drums). From the album Blue’s Moods (1960).

Roy Brooks was an American jazz drummer. He toured with Yusef Lateef and then played with Horace Silver from 1959 to 1964. In 1963 he recorded his first album as a leader. During the 1960s and early 1970s he worked as a freelance in New York with Yusef Lateer, Lee Morgan, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon and Milt Jackson.

In 1970 he recorded his best album, entitled The Free Slave, and joined M’Boom, an ensemble composed only of percussionists created by Max Roach. In 1972 he formed his own group, called the Artistic Truth. He often used strange instruments, such as the musical saw and a device with tubes that sucked air in and out of a drum to change its tone that he invented. He died in 2005 at 67 years of age.

Jones begins by repeating a phrase with the double bass that he keeps throughout the whole tune and then Mitchel enters by playing the theme for the first time. When he plays it for the second time, Kelly and Brooks join in. Then Mitchel performs his solo with calm and elegance. Kelly follows with faster phrases, but keeping the essence of the tune, and then Mitchell returns making a second solo to finish it.