Born Pittsburgh, 1919, drummer Art Blakey remains one of the greatest jazz players and combo leaders in the history of jazz.
Blakey is known for his furious commitment, that soloists playing with him had to exert all their might to keep along with him. Generations of young players have learned their craft in Blakey's groups, left to lead their own groups, leaving him to break in another batch. Along with the drummer Max Roach, it was Blakey's contention that drums were frontline instruments. History has proved them right, but initially their dominant role and parallel interchanges with the horns led to critical accusations of obtrusiveness.
It was this conception of heightened rhythmic activity that led to the formation of the legendary "Jazz Messengers" in 1954 by Blakey and pianist Horace Silver. Their first album-Horace Silver and The Jazz Messengers-has tremendous punch, both drummer and pianist working together to lift the horns, trumpeter Kenny Dorham and tenorist Hank Mobley, on an urgent tide of riffs and accents. A live set (At The Cafe Bohemia) has the magnificent Soft Winds solo by Dorham, but the general standard of playing is so high that it seems pointless to single out performances. The interaction between the drums, piano and the horn is the very essence of Hard Bop.
With the departure of Silver, the main onus of stoking the boilers fell on Blakey, and subsequent albums with altoists Jackie McLean and trumpeter Bill Hardman show an increase in domination from the drums (Night In Tunisia). The meeting with Monk (Art Blakey's The Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk) produced fine, considered music, and both albums featured the unsinkable tenor of Johnny Griffin. Large drum ensembles (Orgy In Rhythm and The Drum Suite) were a preoccupation of Blakey's in the mid 1950s, and showed his links with Africa, home of the drum.
The next Messengers line-up laid emphasis on funk. Pianist Bobby Timmons' tune Moanin' heralded a return to the gospel atmosphere of Silver's The Preacher, and was soon followed by Dat Dere (The Big Beat). Musical Directorship passed down from Benny Golson to trumpeter Lee Morgan, a player of great style and poise as displayed on It's Only A Paper Moon (The Big Beat) and the frontline, if that term has any meaning in Blakey's groups, was brought up to strength by tenor-player Wayne Shorter. Shorter's writing soon became to dominate the band book and a succession of excellent albums restored the ascendancy of he Jazz Messengers (Freedom Rider and Night In Tunisia). Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard took over from Morgan with no loss striking power. There is very little to choose between Bohemia's Delight, Mosaic and Free For All, and the eventual break-up (with Shorter moving to Miles Davis' Quintet), would have been discouraging to anyone less resilient than Blakey. In fact, the 1968 recording at Slugs (Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers Live!) showed the old powerhouse driving the horns with his old unquenchable enthusiasm.
Art Blakey has recorded with a wide range of musicians outside his own group, bringing urgency and sensitivity to the rhythm sections. His contributions to the Thelonious Monk Trios (Thelonious Monk), and early quintets (Genius Of Modern Music), show his compatibility with the percussive keyboard style.
His drum is unmistakable, the chunk of the hi-hat squashing down in silence before the figures start to roll across the skins like the big wooden skittle alley balls, the abrupt pause, a flashing woodpecker rattle of sticks on snare-rim before the final titanic swell.
Indeed, at the 1981 Kool Jazz Festival, for example, Art Blakey hosted a specially memorable night when an extraordinary array of Jazz Messengers, past and present, took the stage together-Johnny Griffin, Jackie McLean, Billy Harper, Bobby Watson, Bill Hardman, Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, Walter Davis and Cedar Walton....................
Throughout the late 70s and 80s Blakey in his time honored tradition, has continued to recruit and introduce promising young talent. The interest in Blakey and the personalities in his current line-ups has become almost "revivalist" in zeal in the 80s.
In spite of overseeing all this awesome youthful Jazz Messengers activity, Blakey's own musical energy and enthusiasm show no signs of dissipating. As Blakey says "I will play drums until Mother Nature tells me different. I will retire when I'm six foot under........"
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