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Both of These Guys Are Not Like the Other
"You take the hot road and I'll take the cool road and . . . “ when you've got a podcast about polar opposites Art Blakey and Warne Marsh you just know some odd stuff is gonna happen. Like finding out that the masterminds behind Steely Dan produced one of Marsh's later efforts, or that Blakey's band was so prolific that Blue Note was releasing sessions years after putting them to tape. Or Pat's theories about Pink Floyd's power struggles ...
read moreArt Blakey: A Night in Tunisia – 1961
Dizzy Gillespie's “A Night in Tunisia" has been done almost to death. Wikipedia says it has been recorded at least 500 times and it is the title track to at least 30 albums. It might be the most recorded bop tune of all time. Who did it best? Take your pick. Dizzy himself recorded many hot versions. All are good and some are great. Charlie Parker and Miles Davis can claim one of the earliest and ...
read moreArt Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin’ – Blue Note 4003
Jazz fans will argue forever over the best version of The Jazz Messengers. Was it the group with Wayne Shorter and Lee Morgan that made A Night in Tunisia in 1960? The 1954 edition with Horace Silver, Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson that made A Night at Birdland? (Which isn't technically a Jazz Messengers album, but really it is.) Or maybe the 1980s version with Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis? Here's an argument for the lineup that made ...
read moreThe Jazz Message: Celebrating the Legacy of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at The Nash
The Jazz Message The Nash Phoenix, Arizona March 29, 2015 The complexity, the power and the musicianship of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers were celebrated by five band alumni in a sextet anchored by drummer Lewis Nash. Performing in two concerts at the Phoenix-born drummer's namesake jazz club were tenor saxophonist-leader Javon Jackson, alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, pianist Benny Green and bassist Peter Washington, with Nash in the Blakey hot-spot.
read moreArt Blakey: Orgy in Rhythm, Volumes 1 and 2 – Blue Note 1554 and 1555
This may be the strangest album ever released on Blue Note Records, and I don't like it. I hate saying that. I love music, and I try to find something to like in everything. I try occasionally to go beyond the familiar. Opera baffles me, but I can't deny there are some beautiful melodies and powerful arias. Country music is cornball to my ears, but I do love me some Johnny Cash. And what is bluegrass ...
read moreJazz Masterpieces: 1956-1965
There are times when you have to hold back and let certain music speak for itself. This list of jazz masterpieces is exactly that kind of music. By definition, these records are without flaw. (Okay, so humans are inherently flawed, but you'll have to get out a microscope to find anything that falls short here.) After surveying our editors, we compromised on this short “master" list. For listeners keen on what the definitive truth was at a certain ...
read more1950s and ‘60s Blue Note – Is It All the Same?
A few years ago, a reader from California named Charlie F. started a provocative discussion in the All About Jazz forums with the title: “I've decided not to buy any more Blue Note albums." Oh boy. He began, “Recently, I came to notice something about Blue Note albums of the 50s-60s, which was that they tended to sound pretty much the same." He acknowledged that “this is a good example of a label finding a particular formula and ...
read moreArt Blakey: The Musical Drummer
“Jazz Washes Away the Dust of Everyday Life" --Art Blakey So said, Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (1919-1990), more widely known to the world of jazz by his pre-Islamic name: Art Blakey. Blakey was my first introduction into the musicality of jazz drumming and, in some senses, my introduction to a lifelong love of jazz. Truly a powerhouse in swing and blues, Blakey led the hard bop playing Jazz Messengers from the 1950s to the 1980s (recording for ...
read moreArt Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin'
Throughout its history, jazz has constantly evolved, developing from and reacting against its earlier incarnations. The mid-1940s saw bebop reinvent jazz as an artist's genre, distinct from the swing style that was the popular music throughout the 1930s and '40s. Bebop was music for listening, not dancing, and the emphasis became virtuosic improvised solos instead of memorable tunes and arrangements. However, the advent of bebop itself led to further reactions and developments within jazz during the 1950s. The newer genre ...
read moreArt Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: The Sesjun Radio Shows
The old and irksome “but is it jazz" argument has probably never been brought into play when it comes to drummer/bandleader Art Blakey (1919-1990) and his ever-changing line-up of Jazz Messengers. The music Blakey and his usually young players made was most certainly jazz, of the hard bop, hard-charging variety--brash and brightly hued, and joyously swinging. The Jazz Messengers, active from the early 1950s until the mid-'80s, was an on-the-job Jazz university, graduating such luminaries as Clifford Brown, ...
read moreArt Blakey and the Giants of Jazz: Live at the 1972 Monterey Jazz Festival
The Giants of Jazz was an all-star band assembled by promoter George Wein in 1971. While Dizzy and Monk were the most celebrated members, the band also included Art Blakey (drums), Sonny Stitt (sax), Kai Winding (trombone) and Al McKibbon (bass). By the time it arrived at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September of 1972, Gillespie had to absent himself to return to his own band and the group had inspired substitutions in the trumpet chair--here both ...
read moreArt Blakey: Holiday for Skins
Holiday for Skins is not totally unique in drummer Art Blakey's output, as the drummer was most famous for some of the greatest hard bop era records ever made with his Jazz Messengers. Though not a Jazz Messengers recording, this original double volume definitely has Blakey's strong personal, percussive stamp. The cover states this is “a message from Blakey and that message is mostly about rhythm and the vast expressive possibilities of the drum sets, congas, bongos, timbales and other ...
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Jazz Story
By Connie Lansberg
Member since: 2010
As a songwriter and vocalist, I love jazz for the experience of being in the center of intense creativity. It is the most potent form of music for keeping the artist and the audience in the 'now”
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