Art Blakey

But as Art himself told it so many times, his career on the piano ended at the wrong end of a pistol when the owner of the Democratic Club—the Pittsburgh nightclub where he was gigging—ordered him off the piano and onto the drums.

Art, then in his early teens and a budding pianist, was usurped by an equally young, Erroll Garner who, as it turned out, was as skilled at the piano as Blakey later was at the drums. The upset turned into

a blessing for Art, launching a career that spanned six decades and nurtured the careers of countless other jazz musicians.

As a young drummer, Art came under the tutelage of legendary drummer and bandleader Chick Webb, serving as his valet. In 1937, Art returned to Pittsburgh, forming his own band, teaming up with Pianist Mary Lou Williams, under whose name the band performed.

From his Pittsburgh gig, Art made his way through the Jazz world. In 1939, he began a three-year gig touring with Fletcher Henderson. After a year in Boston with a steady gig at the Tic Toc club, he joined the great Billy Eckstine, gigging with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughn.

In 1948, Art told reporters he had visited Africa, where he learned polyrhythmic drumming and was introduced to Islam, taking the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. It was in the late ’40s that Art formed his first Jazz Messengers band, a 17-piece big band.

After a brief gig with Buddy DeFranco, in 1954 Art met up with pianist Horace Silver, altoist Lou Donaldson, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and bassist Curly Russell and recorded "live" at Birdland for Blue Note Records. The following year, Art and Horace Silver co-founded the quintet that became the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Horace Silver left the band to form his own group leaving the name, the Jazz Messengers, to Art Blakey.

Art’s driving rhythms and his incessant two and four beat on the high hat cymbals were readily identifiable from the outset and remained a constant throughout 35 years of Jazz Messengers bands. What changed constantly was a seeming unending supply of talented sidemen, many of whom went on to become band leaders in their own right.

In the early years luminaries like Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley and Jackie McLean rounded out the band. In 1959, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson joined the quintet and—at Art’s behest—began working on the songbook and recruiting what became one of the timeless Messenger bands—tenor saxman Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymmie Merritt.

The songs produced from ’59 through the early ’60s became trademarks for the Messengers ?" including Timmon’s Moanin’, Golson’s Along Came Betty and Blues March and Shorter’s Ping Pong.

By this time, the Messengers had become a mainstay on the jazz club circuit and began recording on Blue Note Records. They began touring Europe, with forays into North Africa. In 1960, the Messengers became the first American Jazz band to play in Japan for Japanese audiences. That first Japanese tour was a high point for the band. At the Tokyo airport, the band was greeted by hundreds of fans as Blues March played over their airport intercom and their visit was televised nationally.

In 1961, trombonist Curtis Fuller transformed the Messengers into a proper sextet, giving the band the opportunity to incorporate a big band sound into their hard bop repertoire. Throughout the ’60s, the Messengers remained a mainstay on the jazz scene with jazz greats including Cedar Walton, Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Reggie Workman, Lucky Thompson and John Hicks. In the jazz drought of the ’70s, the Messengers remained a strong force, with fewer recordings, but no less energy. At a time when many jazz musicians were experimenting with electronics and fusing their music with pop, the Messengers were a mainstay of straight-ahead jazz.

Art’s steadfast belief in jazz music left him well positioned to take advantage of the music’s resurgence in the early ’80s. Art had been working with musicians including trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, tenor Billy Pierce, alto saxman Bobby Watson and pianist James Williams. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ 1980 entrance into the band coincided—and played no small part in—the resurgence of the music in the ’80s.

Throughout the ’80 and until his death in 1990, Art maintained the integrity of the message, incubating the careers of musicians including trumpeters Wallace Rooney and Terence Blanchard, pianists Mulgrew Miller and Donald Brown, bassists Peter Washington and Lonnie Plaxico and many others.

Art died at the age of 71 after a career that spanned six of the best decades of jazz music. The messenger has moved on, but his message lives on in the music of the scores of sidemen whose careers he nurtured, the many other drummers he mentored and countless fans who have been blessed to hear the Messengers’ music. Source: Yawu Miller
Show less

Thelonious Monk: With John Coltrane 1957 Revisited

Read "With John Coltrane 1957 Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
December 26, 2023

Once again, the ezz-thetics label has taken some of the finest artefacts of mid-twentieth-century US jazz and sonically restored them, bringing an unprecedented level of clarity, precision and presence. It is no exaggeration to say that the Swiss-based label's work can be compared with the restoration of Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel during the 1980s, both in terms of the quality of the original material and the artistry with which the renovation has been executed. The ...

What is Jazz?

Why Hard Bop?

by AAJ Staff
August 2, 2023

When trying to investigate jazz, all the classifications and categories can be a bit confusing. What do they mean when they say “hard bop?" How is it different from other types of jazz? Although a definition of the music may not necessarily enhance your listening enjoyment a little historical perceptive may be helpful for the jazz collector. The term hard bop, like many classifications in the arts, was created by the critics. It describes the new stylistic development ...

Album Review

Charlie Parker: At Birdland 1950 Revisited

Read "At Birdland 1950 Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 1, 2023

When it comes to live recordings of Charlie Parker, Jazz At Massey Hall, from a concert in Toronto in May 1953, has been widely considered the slam-dunk number one ever since Charles Mingus released it on his Debut label in 1956. Forensicists might favour the 7-CD The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings Of Charlie Parker (Mosaic, 1990), but for most people, Massey Hall takes pole position. There have, however, been challengers for the top spot. Prominent among them ...

Radio & Podcasts

Richard Brent Turner

by Lawrence Peryer
January 14, 2023

Richard Brent Turner is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the African American Studies Program at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism (NYU Press). Soundtrack to a Movement examines the link between the revolutionary Black Islam of the post-WWII generation and jazz music. In the book, Dr. Turner argues that from the late 1940s and '50s though the 1970s, Islam rose in ...

Album Review

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (Deluxe Edition)

Read "Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (Deluxe Edition)" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
May 9, 2022

Rhino's new series of reissues of historic albums from the late 1950s/early 1960s hit the ground running in 2020 with John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1960). Spring 2022 has already seen Charles Mingus' Trio (Jubilee, 1957) and Coltrane's My Favorite Things (Atlantic, 1961). Hot on their heels comes Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (Alantic, 1958). Each reissue is a double disc. Disc one contains the original album. Disc two comprises outtakes, some previously ...

Album Review

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings

Read "First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
October 29, 2021

Perhaps Art Blakey's greatest gift was that he was able to—and also enabled you—to transport through time to when invention was new and not reheated, rebranded, or far worse, rejected out of hand. Just take his opening solo on the Charlie Parker-penned opener “Now's the Time" from the absolutely ribald and raucous First Flight To Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings and get a riotous earful for yourself. Blakey bops, pops, and booms and you're there in the room in Tokyo, ...

Album Review

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings

Read "First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
October 24, 2021

There is a saying in the opera world which, though innocuous on the face of it, damns a work before the overture has begun let alone after the fat lady sings. The saying, beloved of breathless publicists deaf to its implication, is that such and such an opera is “rarely performed." The reason it is rarely performed, of course, is because nine times out of ten it is a dud. When it comes to jazz albums the parallel ...

Music Industry

Backgrounder: Art Blakey! Jazz Messengers!, 1961

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 16, 2023

One of my favorite albums by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers has a baffling title. For some reason, Impulse Records decided the title should be Art Blakey Jazz Messengers The confusing result is that some refer to the album as Impulse!!! or Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers!!! while those in Japan know the album as Alamode. Whatever title you choose, the album is an explosion of energy and beauty. Recorded in June 1961, the Messengers lineup consisted of ...
read more

TV / Film

Jazz 625: Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 14, 2023

On March 7, 1965, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers appeared on the BBC-TVs Jazz 625, hosted by Humphrey Lyttelton. The video of the performance was recently colorized, which gives the musicians enormous dimension and visual personality. The music was always great. The color just makes the presentation a little greater. The Jazz Messengers on this date consisted of Art Blakey (d), Lee Morgan (tp), John Gilmore (ts), John Hicks (p) and Victor Sproles (b). Here's Art Blakey & the ...
read more

Event

A Tribute To Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers With Messenger Alums Bill Pierce & John Ramsay on November 13

Source: Mary Curtin Productions
October 26, 2022

A Tribute to Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. Featuring “messenger” alums Bill Pierce (saxophone) and John Ramsay (drums); accompanied by Greg Hopkins (trumpet), Dan Fox (trombone), Consuelo Candelaria (piano), and Greg Ryan (bass). Arlington High School Jazz Band, led by Tino D'Agostino, opens. Sunday, November 13, 6:30 pm. For advance concert tickets ($25, $15 students/seniors), click here. For further information visit us, email us or call 617-909-7776. Location Robbins Memorial Town Hall 730 Massachusetts Avenue Arlington, MA ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Blakey

Source: Michael Ricci
October 11, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Art Blakey's birthday today!

Born in 1919, Art Blakey began his musical career, as did many jazz musicians, in the church. The foster son of a devout Seventh Day Adventist Family, Art learned the piano as he learned the Bible, mastering both at an early age. But as Art himself told it so many times, his career on the piano ended at the wrong end of a pistol when the owner of the Democratic Club—the ...
read more

TV / Film

Documentary: Art Blakey

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 28, 2022

Dick Fontaine remains one of the world's finest music documentarians. The British filmmaker also has had a knack for identifying major trends early and capturing them in their nascent form. Among his subjects have been the Beatles (filmed four days after Ringo joined the band at Liverpool's Cavern club in 1962), Ornette Coleman (1966), Sonny Rollins (1968) and hip-hop (1984). In all, he has made more than 40 films and his subjects have included James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Jean Shrimpton, ...
read more

Recording

Art Blakey: Flight to Tokyo

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 17, 2021

In January 1961, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were on their first tour of Japan. That year, the Messengers consisted of a tough bunch of signature players—Lee Morgan (tp), Wayne Shorter (ts), Bobby Timmons (p), Jymie Merritt (b) and Blakey (d). This particular line-up of Messengers had been together since early 1960, when they recorded The Big Beat for Blue Note. The fact that Blakey was able to assemble and unify so much jazz firepower was a testament to ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Blakey

Source: Michael Ricci
October 11, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Art Blakey's birthday today!

Video / DVD

JoAnne Brackeen + Art Blakey

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 29, 2021

JoAnne Brackeen is a jazz pianist with thunderous talent. She's an original who soars as a soloist, in duets, in trios, quartets and beyond. Her hands hit the keyboard with enormous power and her churning style mixes abstraction, bop and hard bop, turning standards inside out and setting her own originals on fire. I love her playing. It's daring, fierce and doesn't take prisoners. She's all in and always finds her way out. Born in Ventura, Calif. in 1938, Brackeen ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Blakey

Source: Michael Ricci
October 11, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Art Blakey's birthday today!

Video / DVD

Art Blakey: Just Coolin'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 20, 2020

Listening back to the tape he recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, N.J., on March 8, 1959, Blue Note producer Alfred Lion liked what he heard. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were on fire. The music was tight and ferocious, with the horns—trumpeter Lee Morgan and tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley—improvising on point. The rhythm section—pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Jymie Merritt and Blakey on drums—were stirring the pot behind them. If there was a flaw, it was Mobley ...
read more

Recent Releases

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Art Blakey

Art Blakey

Get more of a good thing!

Connect

More Access

For Musicians

Advertise