Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers

Drummer Art Blakey and his band, The Jazz Messengers, are the pioneers of a jazz sub-genre called “hard bop”. Hard bop takes the fundamentals of be-bop and adds elements of rhythm and blues. The idea behind hard bop was to make be-bop music more danceable and perhaps, more palatable to mainstream music fans.

Art Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1919, and by the Fifties, his virtuosic and incessant drumming would put him at the forefront of the be-bop genre along with Dizzy Gilliespie, Thelonious Monk and others.

In 1954, he formed the band, The Jazz Messengers, which became a training ground for up and coming young jazz musicians. New Orleans trumpet prodigy Wynton Marsalis would get his professional start as a member of the band. Among the best of the Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers albums are “A Night at Birdland” (Volumes 1-3) (1954), “The Jazz Messengers” (1956), “A Night in Tunisia” (1957), “Drum Suite” (1957), “Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk” (1958), “Ritual” (1959), “Moanin’”(1959),  “The Big Beat” (1960),  “Mosaic” (1961) “Free for All,” “A Night in Tunisia” (1961), and “Indestructible” (1965).