Art Blakey
This week we’re going to profile Art Blakey, who is an important figure in jazz not only in his own right, but also as the force behind the Jazz Messengers, a long-lived group whose ever-changing membership over time has served as the entrance to a professional jazz career for a number of other famous jazz figures. His career is an example of the difference one man can make in his own way to leave both his field and the wider world a better place for his passage…
Born October 11, 1919, Blakey began his career as a piano player – but switched to the drums when he was given “an offer he couldn’t refuse:” The owner of the Democratic Club in Pittsburgh, where he was performing, ordered the teenager at gunpoint off the piano and onto the drums. It was a blessing in disguise, and Blakey’s career took off.
By the early 1940’s, Blakey was performing with such notables as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughn. He converted to Islam during a long visit to western Africa after WWII, and for a time went by the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, from which he got his nickname, “Bu.”
Returning from Africa, Blakey began performing with a number of up and coming notables in the jazz world, including Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, as well as forming his own 17-piece big band. As the 1950’s continued, however, many big bands fell on hard times due to changing popular tastes (which is why you see the appearance of smaller groups like quintets from this time), and by 1955 Blakey and pianist Horace Silver were performing with a quintet called the Jazz Messengers. In 1956 Silver moved on, and Blakey assumed leadership of the group, which was known as “Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers” from then on.
Blakey was a key figure in the stylistic change in jazz from the “swing” music of the 1940’s to the “bebop” sound characteristic of the 1950’s and later. In fact, the “hard bop” sound played by Blakey’s group remains today the primary sound or style that most people think of if someone were to say to them “What does jazz sound like? Imagine it in your head.”
As a deliberate policy, Blakey made the Jazz Messengers a training ground for the best of the crop of up and coming jazz musicians, who would join the group for a time before moving on to successful professional careers with groups of their own. In the 1960s, such well-known artists in their own right as Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Timmons, Jackie McLean, Benny Golson, Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Freddy Hubbard, and Cedar Walton all had stints with the Jazz Messengers.
Blakey continued in this way thought jazz’s lean years of the 1970’s, and was there to provide a bridge across generations when a new crop of up and coming jazz musicians came on the scene in the 1980’s. Both Wynton and Branford Marsalis are ex-Messengers, as are Terence Blanchard, Wallace Roney, Mulgrew Miller, Donald Brown, and several others.
He also continued performing with other jazz greats on their albums/CDs throughout his career, in addition to his work with the Jazz Messengers. He died October 16, 1990 in New York City. A complete discography for Blakey can be found on Wikipedia. I’ll especially recommend any of the Jazz Messengers albums from the mid-fifties through the mid-sixties (many are live recordings) for those of you unfamiliar with the Jazz Messengers, but most especially “A Night In Tunisia (1960) or “Moanin'” (1958). The early 1980’s albums with the Marsalises are also worth a listen as well.
An interesting aspect of the Art Blakey website can be found by clicking on “Bu’s Corner” and then on “Bu-isms;” this page has examples of the musical notation of Blakey’s drumming along with audio clips of the same piece, so you can read along while you listen. If you know any young drummers out there, or are a drummer yourself, you might find this especially interesting.
On My Christmas Wish List:
Caught part of a story on NPR the other day that a long-lost recording has been found, restored, and now released, of the Thelonious Monk / John Coltrane quartet performing in a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City on November 29, 1957. The NPR link above has three full-length cuts you can enjoy while you read the rest of this week’s Jazz Jam! Here’s the review at Amazon.com:
Every year sees a crop of newly found jazz gems, but rarely are listeners treated to anything as special as this 1957 concert recording of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, which was accidentally discovered in an unmarked box by a Library of Congress engineer early in 2005. Until now, fans could only dream of hearing these two immortals play together beyond the three studio tracks they left behind. But here they are, hitting their stride at an all-star benefit concert, basking in the chemistry they had developed in Monk’s quartet during the preceding weeks at New York’s Five Spot. Coltrane’s playing is a revelation. He’s both an inspired accompanist and a galvanizing soloist, taking the music to new heights with his bold, brilliantly challenging, and sometimes jaw-dropping phrases, note clusters, and blasts of power. Sharing with Coltrane a newfound sense of freedom following the personal and professional troubles that had plagued them both, Monk is clearly tickled to be in the tenorist’s presence, injecting humorous commentaries and otherwise asserting his eccentric genius as a pianist. The material, which was very well recorded by the Voice of America, includes Monk classics like “Epistrophy,” “Monk’s Moods,” and “Evidence,” as well as a striking rendition of the standard “Sweet and Lovely.” This is music that not only bears repeated listenings, but also demands them–the ultimate definition of a classic. –Lloyd Sachs
Listener comments at Blue Notes Records included the following:
Reviewer – Raul Pereira from Portugal:
I heard it this morning in a Portuguese radio. This represents to Jazz the same as finding a new Bach’s sonata represents to classical music, they said. I agree, superb!
Reviewer – Joe D. from Orange Park, Florida:
I have heard the entire release from the CD. None of you should doubt for a second the beauty of the music and the exemplary quality of the sound. I was expecting issues with the sound, since the tape sat unattended for so long. Not to worry; the remastering is superb. This is going to be one of those collections that will be a must-have and will appear in most all-time-greatest-jazz-album lists generations from now, and deservedly so. What a remarkable discovery.
Like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls (almost) – Kellen Trane Curtiss from Stevensville, Montana
AMAZING! A hair short of the Holy Grail! – Mindy Ramone from Bronx, NY
…You get the idea. Now go enjoy the CD…
Jazz Birthdays: (names link to biographical / musical information)
1 October – Dave Holland. Born 1946. Bassist.
7 October – Jo Jones. Born 1911. Drummer.
8 October – Pepper Adams. Born 1930. Saxman.
9 October –
Abdullah (Dollar Brand) Ibrahim. Born 1934. Pianist.
Kenny Garrett. Born 1960. Saxman.
Yusef Lateef. Born 1920. Sax, Flute, Oboe, and various other woodwinds
10 October – Thelonious Monk. Born 1917. Pianist
11 October –
Mose Allison. Born 1927. Pianist.
Art Blakey. Born 1919. Drummer (see top of diary)
13 October –
Lee Konitz. Born 1927. Saxman
Pharoah Sanders. Born 1940. Saxman
Art Tatum. Born 1909. Pianist
Hints of the Week:
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Website:
All About Jazz is a site that features news, interviews, and reviews of new CDs. It also allows artists to promote their latest CDs (including sound clips) and upcoming concerts.
Jazz Blogs / Forums (Fora?):
I know, why would you want a jazz blog when you can come to the frog pond and watch the collapse of the Bush regime in real-time, with play-by-play by Boo, Susan, Catnip, etc.? But in case you ever feel the need to take a break from freedom-fighting, you might want to check out the following:
- The All About Jazz site above has a pretty active forum you might want to explore.
- Jazz Writer blog: “I’m a freelance writer by day and a working jazz musician by night, and often I am able to combine my two lines of work. This blog is for posting gigs & various rants about music and life in general.”
- Redhouse Jazz is a jazz blog with a San Francisco focus, but which currently has some good post-Katrina entries on how some NOLA musicians have been affected.
- Jazz Portraits is a blog by the station manager at KFSR FM in Fresno, CA:
Getting paid to listen to music, and play it for other people, isn’t such a bad gig. While supervising KFSR’s jazz programs is only a very small part of my duties as Station Manager of KFSR FM in Fresno, California, it’s the part closest to my heart, and the subject of this blog. I also host a four day a week radio show on KFSR, playing a lot of the music I discuss here on this blog. Our station is the primary source for real jazz music (Miles, Duke, Coltrane, and artists of today as well) in California’s Great Central Valley. We also broadcast a wide variety of genres, from world to western swing, indie pop to electronica. We can be heard 24/7 on the web at kfsr.org
Jazz Podcasts:
[Coming next week]
Your Turn:
So, what music for regime change are you listening to this week?