Understanding Reel to Real By Sergio Spada The impressive energy and vitality that shine through the notes of this recent publication could come to move listeners who love jazz and are looking for something special. The live recording of this concert, in Baltimore in 1970, in a special period of American and world history, full of instances, protests, claims, affirmations of identity, all themes that often passed (also) through music, invests like a tornado and gives no respite. It’s about a hundred minutes of pure instrumental force emanating from a quartet in a state of grace led by Roy Brooks, a drummer as full of experiences and gifted, although he is unknown compared to the big names. And the rest of the line-up needs no introduction: Woody Shaw on trumpet, Carlos Garnett on tenor, Harold Mabern on piano, Cecil McBee on drums. In a nutshell, one of the best live sets witnessed on support (CDs of excellent sound quality) in the history of jazz, probably without exaggeration. On the tireless, urgent, relentless rhythm, set by Brooks and the rest of the formation, a young Woody Shaw (no one in the formation passes thirty years) in combination with Garnett’s sax blow…