Drummers - Art Blakey
Arthur (Art) Blakey (October 11, 1919–October 16, 1990),
also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American jazz drummer and
bandleader. Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the
inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a
powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard
bop was (and remains) profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. Over
more than 30 years his band the Jazz Messengers included many young
musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's
legacy is thus not only the often exceptionally fine music it produced,
but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; it is
comparable only to Miles Davis's bands in this regard.
* 1 Early career
* 2 The Jazz Messengers
* 3 Later career
* 4 Awards
* 5 Selected discography
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 External links
Early career
In the 1940s, Blakey was a member of bands led by Mary Lou Williams,
Fletcher Henderson, and Billy Eckstine. He converted to Islam during a
visit to West Africa in the late 1940s and took the name Abdullah Ibn
Buhaina (which led to the nickname "Bu"). The African visit is the
subject of some dispute as he was never absent from America for the
length of time claimed. Some suspect the trip never took place.[Who?] By
the late forties and early fifties, Blakey was backing musicians such as
Miles Davis, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk — he is often considered to
have been Monk's most sympathetic drummer,[original research?] and he
played on both Monk's first recording session as a leader (for Blue Note
Records in 1947) and his final one (in London in 1971), as well as many
in between.
The Jazz Messengers
The origins of the Messengers are in a series of groups led or co-led by
Blakey and pianist Horace Silver, though the name was not used on the
earliest of their recordings. The most celebrated of these early records
(credited to "The Art Blakey Quintet"), is A Night at Birdland from
February 1954,[citation needed] one of the earliest commercially
released "live" jazz records. This featured Silver, Blakey, the young
trumpeter Clifford Brown, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson and bassist
Curly Russell. The "Jazz Messengers" name was first used on a 1954
recording nominally led by Silver, with Blakey, Hank Mobley, Kenny
Dorham and Doug Watkins — the same quintet would record The Jazz
Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia the following year, still as a
collective. Donald Byrd replaced Dorham, and the group recorded an album
called simply The Jazz Messengers for Columbia Records in 1956. Blakey
took over the group name when Silver left after the band's first year
(taking Mobley, Byrd and Watkins with him to form a new quintet with a
variety of drummers), and the band was known as "Art Blakey and the Jazz
Messengers" from then onwards.
Two of the group's most famous lineups featured Wayne Shorter on
saxophone. The first was a quintet that existed from 1959 to 1961 and
included Blakey, Shorter, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan, and Bobby Timmons.
The second (1961–1964) was a sextet that added trombonist Curtis Fuller
and replaced Morgan and Timmons with Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton,
respectively. Shorter was the musical director of the group, and many of
his original compositions such as "Lester Left Town" remained staples of
Blakey's repertoire even after Shorter's departure. (Other players over
the years made permanent marks on Blakey's repertoire — Timmons,
composer of "Dat Dere" and "Moanin'", Benny Golson, composer of "Along
Came Betty" and "Are You Real", and, later, Bobby Watson.) Shorter's
more experimental inclinations pushed the band at the time into an
engagement with the 1960s "New Thing", as it was called: the influence
of Coltrane's contemporary records on Impulse! is evident on Free For
All (1964), often cited as the greatest document of the Shorter-era
Messengers (and certainly one of the most fearsomely powerful examples
of hard bop on record).[citation needed]
Later career
Blakey went on to record dozens of albums with a constantly changing
group of Jazz Messengers — he had a policy of encouraging young
musicians: as he remarked on-mike on A Night at Birdland (1954): "I'm
gonna stay with the youngsters. When these get too old I'll get some
younger ones. Keeps the mind active." After weathering the fusion era of
the 1960s and 1970s with some difficulty (recordings from this period
are less plentiful and include attempts to incorporate instruments like
electric piano), Blakey's band got a shot in the arm in the late 1970s
and early 1980s with the advent of neotraditionalist jazz. Wynton
Marsalis was for a time the band's trumpeter and musical director, and
even after Marsalis's departure Blakey's band continued as a proving
ground for many so-called "Young Lion" players. Blakey continued
performing and touring with the group into the late 1980s, and he died
in 1990 in New York City, leaving behind a vast legacy and approach to
jazz which is still the model for countless hard-bop players.
Up to the 1960s Blakey also recorded as a sideman with many other
musicians: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Nichols, Cannonball Adderley, Miles
Davis, Grant Green, and Jazz Messengers graduates Lee Morgan and Hank
Mobley, amongst many others. However, after the mid-1960s he mostly
concentrated on his own work as a leader.
Awards
* Jazz Mobile Development and Preservation of Jazz (1970)
* Newport Jazz Festival Hall of Fame (1976)
* Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame Reader's Choise Award (1981)
* Smithsonian Performing Arts Certificate of Appreciation (1982)
* Lee Morgan Memorial Award (1982)
* Jazz Hall of Fame Induction (1982)
* Grammy Award Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group (1984) for the
album New York Scene
* Jazznote Award (1986)
* Doctorate of Music (1987; Berklee College of Music)
* Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award (1991)
* Grammy Hall of Fame Induction for the album Moanin' (2001)
* Pittsburgh Jazz Festival Award
* Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2005; awarded posthumously)
Selected discography
For more details on this topic, see Art Blakey discography.
* 1954: A Night at Birdland Vol. 1 (live, billed as "The Art Blakey
Quintet") (Blue Note)
* 1954: A Night at Birdland Vol. 2 (live, billed as "The Art Blakey
Quintet") (Blue Note)
* 1955: At the Cafe Bohemia, Vol. 1 (live, billed as "The Jazz
Messengers") (Blue Note)
* 1955: At the Cafe Bohemia, Vol. 2 (live, billed as "The Jazz
Messengers") (Blue Note)
* 1956: The Jazz Messengers (Columbia)
* 1957: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk
(Atlantic/Rhino)
* 1957: Orgy in Rhythm (Blue Note)
* 1958: Moanin' (Blue Note)
* 1958: 1958 Paris Olympia (Fontana)
* 1958: Des Femmes Disparaissent/Les Tricheurs (Fontana)
* 1959: At the Jazz Corner of the World (live) (Blue Note)
* 1959: Live in Stockholm 1959 (DIW)
* 1959: Live in Stockholm 1959 (Dragon) — recorded on the same day as
the previous disc
* 1960: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (Fontana)
* 1960: The Big Beat (Blue Note)
* 1960: Unforgettable Lee! (Fresh Sound)
* 1960: A Night in Tunisia (Blue Note)
* 1960: More Birdland Sessions (Fresh Sound)
* 1960: Live in Stockholm 1960 (Dragon)
* 1960: Lausanne 1960 First Set (TCB)
* 1960: Lausanne 1960 Second Set (TCB)
* 1960: Like Someone in Love (Blue Note)
* 1961: Roots and Herbs (Blue Note)
* 1961: Jazz Messengers (Impulse!)
* 1961: Mosaic (Blue Note)
* 1961: The Freedom Rider (Blue Note)
* 1961: The Witch Doctor (Blue Note)
* 1961: Buhaina's Delight (Blue Note)
* 1962: Three Blind Mice volumes 1 and 2 (Blue Note)
* 1962: Caravan (Original Jazz Classics)
* 1962: The African Beat (Blue Note)
* 1963: Ugetsu (Original Jazz Classics)
* 1963: A Jazz message (Impulse!)
* 1964: Free for All (Blue Note)
* 1964: Kyoto (Original Jazz Classics)
* 1964: Indestructible
* 1966: Buttercorn Lady (Limelight)
* 1973: Child's Dance (Prestige)
* 1973: Mission Eternal (Prestige)
* 1973: Buhaina (Prestige)
* 1977: In My Prime volume 1 (Timeless)
* 1978: In This Korner (Concord)
* 1981: In Sweden (Evidence)
* 1981: Straight Ahead (Concord)
* 1982: Keystone 3 (Concord)
* 1984: New York Scene (Concord)
* 1985: Live at Kimball's (Concord)
* 1988: Not Yet (Soul Note)
* 1988: I Get a Kick out of Bu (Soul Note)
* 1990: Chippin' In (Timeless)
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Blakey
|
