Curt's Jazz Cafe

Art Blakey [Abdullah Ibn Buhaina] 1919 – 1990

Art Blakey of course, will be forever known as  “headmaster” of jazz’s greatest finishing school, the legendary Jazz Messengers.  He was also for a time, the unofficial house drummer for Blue Note Records.  The list of jazz legends who’ve logged time with the Messengers is stunning. Just the trumpet players alone could fill their own wing in the Jazz Hall of Fame (Brownie, Morgan, Hubbard, Wynton and even Chuck Mangione!).

Blakey and the Messengers have been well documented, so instead of repeating any more of their history, I’m going to repeat one of my favorite fables about Blakey, who was known for never missing an opportunity to be an advocate for music he loved:

“Art was driving to an out-of-town job and passed through a village where traffic was completely tied up because of a funeral procession. Since he couldn’t get past the cemetery until the service was over, he got out and listened to the eulogy. The minister spoke at length about the virtues of the deceased, and then asked if anyone had anything else to add. After a silence during which nobody spoke up, Art said, ‘If nobody has anything to say about the deceased, I’d like to say a few words about jazz!”

So here are “Bu” and the boys with a few “words” to say about jazz!

With the incredible 1961 Messengers, on “Moanin”

 The same group on Bobby Timmons’ “Dat Dere”

From the ’80’s, with the Marsalis Brothers on “Ms. B.C.”

And one of the final editions of the Messengers does it right on “Along Came Betty”

This entry was posted on November 12, 2011 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Video Vault with tags art blakey, jazz, jazz messengers, jazz video, lee morgan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.