Label: Blue Note, Audio Wave (US), 84041, AWMXR-0004
Style: Tenor Saxophone, Jazz, Hard Bop
Country: New York City, U.S. (June 7, 1932 - August 13, 1974)
Time: 37:32
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 267 Mb
Harold
Floyd Brooks was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and was the
brother of David "Bubba" Brooks. The nickname "Tina", pronounced Teena,
was a variation of "Teeny", a childhood moniker. His favourite tune was
"My Devotion". He studied harmony and theory with Herbert Bourne.
Initially,
he studied the C-melody saxophone, which he began playing shortly after
he moved to New York with his family in 1944. Brooks' first
professional work came in 1951 with rhythm and blues pianist Sonny
Thompson, and in 1955 Brooks played with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton.
Brooks also received less-formal guidance from trumpeter and composer
"Little" Benny Harris, who led the saxophonist to his first recording as
a leader. Harris recommended Brooks to Blue Note producer Alfred Lion
in 1958.
Until 1980, True Blue remained the only Brooks album
commercially released. In 1980, Blue Note Japan released the Minor Move
and Street Singer albums, the latter jointly credited to Jackie McLean.
In 1985, Mosaic Records released The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of
The Tina Brooks Quintets on a 4-LP set, which made Back to the Tracks
and The Waiting Game available for the first time. The Mosaic set, a
limited edition produced by Michael Cuscuna, is out of print. In the CD
era, all of Brooks' Blue Note sessions as a leader or co-leader have
been released on CD, including on releases by Blue Note Japan and Blue
Note's Connoisseur series.
In the liner notes for the CD release of
Back to the Tracks, Cuscuna wrote: "Far lesser talents have been far
more celebrated" and that Brooks "was a unique, sensitive improviser who
could weave beautiful and complex tapestries through his horn. His
lyricism, unity of ideas and inner logic were astounding."
David
Rosenthal in his book Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965 wrote
about Brooks. Of his composition "Street Singer", Rosenthal wrote that
it is "an authentic hard-bop classic" where "pathos, irony and rage come
together in a performance at once anguished and sinister."
The
official Blue Note website says of Brooks: "With a strong, smooth tone
and an amazing flow of fresh ideas every time he soloed, tenor
saxophonist Tina Brooks should have been a major jazz artist, but his
legacy is confined to a series of dates that he did for Blue Note as a
sideman and leader" and that he "was one of the most brilliant, if
underrated, tenor saxophonists in modern jazz."
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Brooks)
01. Good Old Soul (08:03)
02. Up Tight's Creek (05:19)
03. Theme For Doris (05:48)
04. True Blue (04:54)
05. Miss Hazel (05:34)
06. Nothing Ever Changes My Love For You (07:51)
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