Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers | Artist

Arthur Blakey was an American jazz drummer and bandleader born 1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was most widely known as drummer and band leader of the influential hard-bop jazz collective Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, formed 1954 in New York City, by Art Blakey (drums), Horace Silver (piano), Lee Morgan (Trumpet), Benny Golson (saxophone), Bobby Timmons (piano) and Jymie Merritt (double bass). Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. In the early 1950s he began working together with Horace Silver which was the precursor to the Jazz Messengers. The debut Jazz Messengers album was the self-titled release from 1956 displayed the group's trademark "hard bop" sound with touches of swing from Horace Silver, and Blakey's superb drumming. Over the course of four decades the group lineup regularly changed, featuring some of jazz's leading players such as Donald Byrd, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, Chuck Mangione, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Wayne Shorter and McCoy Tyner. There have been over seventy studio album releases by The Jazz Messengers, including several Art Blakey solo works. Standouts include Moanin' (1959), A Night in Tunisia (1961), Free For All (1965), and Indestructible (1966). The 1959 album Moanin' is regarded by many Jazz critics as one of the most important works of the hard bop Jazz genre. The Jazz Messengers nurtured and influenced many of the key figures of the hard bop movement of the late 1950s to early 1960s, and of the Neotraditionalist movement of the 1980s and 1990s, both of which had the Jazz Messengers in a stylistically seminal role. In the words of drummer Cindy Blackman shortly after Blakey's death, "When jazz was in danger of dying out [during the 1970s], there was still a scene. Art kept it going."

Artist Website: artblakey.com

Featured Albums: Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

Related Artists: Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter