Four Classic Albums Plus - Hard Bop / Drum Suite / Impulse!! Art Blakey!! The Jazz Messengers! / Caravan

To emphasise the importance of ART BLAKEY in the history of jazz, this release is our third outing from the great man. This is what we said before... AMSC 1017: Just as Miles had a constant stream of seasoned players in his bands and provided a training ground for young and upcoming musicians, so did Art Blakey with his Jazz Messengers. The list of greats and future greats is certainly impressive from Donald Byrd to Wayne Shorter taking in John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver, Johnny Griffin and dozens more! Here we find the powerhouse drummer on fine form in a number of different settings. The Big Band was no stranger to Art having cut his teeth with Fletcher Henderson as far back as 1939 and as a member of Billy Eckstine's Big Band, perhaps the greatest of the modern era, featuring Bird and Dizzy! "The Jazz Messengers" set from 1956 really swings and provides the template for future Messengers line ups and shows how a small combo can provide plenty of room for improvisation. "Jazz Messengers - Hard Drive" from 1957 finds Art joined by tenor Johnny Griffin and pianist Junior Mance who help Art produce his best set since the departure of original members Horace Silver and Hank Mobley. AMSC1269:

To blues and rock fans Art Blakey was the John Mayall of the jazz world! His 35 year association with his Jazz Messengers being the same kind of training ground for jazz musicians that Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor found with Mayall in the '60s. The list is incredible, from Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Freddie Hubbard to Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan and Wynton Marsalis and way beyond. Blakey started his long career back in the 1930s playing with Mary Lou Williams and touring with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. His early life is mired in mystery, myth and conjecture but what is for certain is that he was playing drums for the Billy Eckstine big band from 1944-47 where he met many of the musicians who would go on to be involved in the be-bop movement of the late 1940s and '50s. And here we are talking about Dizzy, Miles, Bird, Dexter Gordon and Fats Navarro amongst others. Our selection takes us from the end of the hard bop era with the likes of Benny Golson and into a more modern period featuring a new breed of players like Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Freddie Hubbard and Curtis Fuller.

So now we have our third release which kind of brings together all the elements that made Art Blakey great from hard bop to the new thing. Jackie McLean joins Art for Hard Bop and here we have added three extra outtakes originally taken from side two of the Drum Suite album so we can present a more complete view of the session. Drum Suite featuring Arts Percussion Ensemble, of course famously speaks for itself. Jazz legend Wayne Shorter again joins up with Art for our two albums on CD2. Here he's joined by the likes of Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton. There really was nothing like Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers