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A True Messenger of Jazz
Art Blakey-drummer and jazz musician-his contribution to jazz from 1954 to 1990 as leader of the Jazz Messengers created a sound known as Hard Bop and influenced many groups over the various decades. Horace Silver along with Blakey founded the school in February 1954 at Birdland in New York City since then hundreds of musicians have graduated from the university.
"To pass through life and miss this music is to miss out on one of the best things about living."
"When people come in to relax and enjoy themselves after a hard day's work, its my job to make them happy-to wash away the dust of everyday life.
Thats what Jazz music is all aboutWe started the Messengers because somebody had to mind the store for jazz.
No America--no Jazz. It is the only culture that America has brought forth.
Everything comes from another continent. It so happens that jazz comes from the black people-and they should know about it, but they know less about it, than anybody else in the world."You all get into the studio and you try to make everything so God damn clinical. Two months from now when you hear this tune you won't recognize it yourself. You ain't going to play it the same way every night, use your imagination, that's what JAZZ is all about. If you ain't got no imagination you might as well quit. All he did was put up a skeleton of the the tune we are going to play, so go on and play and if you make a mistake make it LOUD so you won't make it next time."
"When queried as to how he could consistantly find such bright young talent Art would reply, " I don't find them.
They find me!"Quotes From Art's Contemporaries:
Kenny Clark: You see Buhaina is the only one I know who can make a press or ocean roll come out on top of the beat and keep the whole shit swinging. He never looked back. If you know a living drummer who can do it better than 'Buh' name him and I'll kiss him here and now"-1963Geoff Keezer: He had the an ability to open up your sound-no matter what instrument you played. He was three times my age but it was hard to keep up with him.
Horace Silver: He got behind his musicians and just goosed them, made them play up to their potential.
Dizzy Gillespie: Kenny Clarke was the Godfather, Max was the painter to put the colors together; Art was the volcano! Wynton Marsalis: If I hadn't played with Art, I wouldn't have played jazz.
The Life and Times of Art Blakey
He was born Arthur Blakey, 11 October 1919, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Blakey was a pianist first; the move to drums has been variously attributed to Erroll Garner appearing on the scene, the regular drummer being off sick and (Blakey's favourite) a gangster's unarguable directive. Whatever, Art Blakey drummed for Mary Lou Williams on her New York debut in 1942, Fletcher Henderson's mighty swing orchestra (1943-4) and the legendary Billy Eckstine band that included Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk (1944-7).
The classic bebop sessions tended to have Max Roach or Kenny Clarke behind the drums, but Blakey had the last laugh, becoming the pre-eminent leader of the hard bop movement. In contrast to the baroque orchestrations of the West Coast Jazz‘ cool’ school, hard bop combined bebop's instrumental freedoms with a surging backbeat out of gospel. Ideally suited to the new long-playing record, tunes lengthened into rhythmic epics that featured contrasting solos.
The pressure of Blakey's hi-hat and snare became legendary, as did the musicians who passed through the ranks of the Jazz Messengers. Blakey never tired of telling his sidemen (and sidewomen—pianist Joanne Brackeen was one of his discoveries) to go off and form their own bands: his band became an on-the-road college. His insistence on complete musicianship was complemented by an understanding that without risk jazz is dead. Impatient with timidity and safeness, his drumming encouraged daring and brilliance. He would lean with his elbow on the surface of the drum to change its intonation: such ‘press rolls’ became a musical trademark. That his power was not from want of subtlety was illustrated by his uncanny sympathy for Thelonious Monk's sense of rhythm: his contribution to Monk's historic 1957 group that included both Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane was devastating, and the London trio recordings he made with Monk in 1971 (SOMETHING IN BLUE and THE MAN I LOVE) are perhaps his most impressive achievements as a player.
Blakey was a beacon for the creativity and drive of acoustic jazz through the electric '70s. Miles Davis once remarked ‘If Art Blakey's old-fashioned, I'm white’: this was borne out in the '80s when hard bop became all the rage. Ex-Jazz Messengers Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard became the apostles of a return to jazz values. In England, a televised encounter in 1986 with the young turks of black British jazz—including Courtney Pine and Steve Williamson—showed how Blakey's hipness transcended generations, as he taught the IDJ Dancers (ex-break dancers who decided to Dance Jazz) the complexities of A Night In Tunisia.
Until his death in 1990, Art Blakey continually found new musicians and put them through his special discipline of heat and precision. When he played, Blakey invariably had his mouth open in a grimace of pleasure and concentration: his drumming still makes the jaw drop today. For a period following his conversion to Islam, Blakey changed his name to Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, which led to his nickname Bu. His creativity, love of jazz, and philosophy still lives on in his own Art Blakey University.
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