Art Blakey hit the drums harder and with more joy than almost anyone, driving his bands with a press roll like a wave breaking and a beat you could feel in your chest. He came up in the swing and bebop eras, but his real monument is hard bop – the earthy, bluesy, gospel-charged music he powered for thirty-five years.
His band, the Jazz Messengers, was more than a band. It was an institution, a university. Blakey had a genius for spotting young talent, hiring it, pushing it, and then letting it move on to lead. The list of musicians who passed through is a history of modern jazz: Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, on and on.
He kept the music fresh by keeping the personnel young, treating each new edition of the Messengers as a chance to learn what the kids were hearing. In return he gave them the hardest-swinging rhythmic foundation in the business and a stage to grow on. “I’m gonna stay with the youngsters,” he said. “When these get too old, I’ll get some younger ones.”
Behind the drums he was elemental – the African-influenced polyrhythms, the explosive accents, the sheer physical force. Few musicians gave more to the music or sent more talent out into it.
Start here
Moanin’ (1959) is the quintessential Messengers record – gospel-soaked hard bop at full boil.
A Night at Birdland (1954), with Clifford Brown, captures the band’s early fire live.
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Played with Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk
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