Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 280 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
Although this series is posted on Sundays, I want to acknowledge that Saturday was the birthday of jazz drummer Art Blakey, who was born on Oct. 11, 1919. I’ve paid tribute to jazz drummers collectively in the past, but It's long past time to give Black jazz drummers the respect they are due. I want to give Blakey his props today.
I’m posting several documentary features about Blakey of varying lengths which I hope you can set aside some time out to play.
“The Genius of Art Blakey” from Drumeo:
As the Drumeo video explains:
Art Blakey, a true innovator of modern jazz drumming, left an indelible mark on the genre with his powerful and thunderous style. As the leader of the Jazz Messengers, he recorded nearly 70 albums, collaborating with legendary musicians such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. His drumming was characterized by showmanship and explosive solos, making him stand out in the jazz scene. Art Blakey's technical prowess, including his mastery of advanced drumming techniques and incorporation of unique rhythms, set him apart as a trailblazer in the world of jazz. Join us as we dive into the Genius Of Art Blakey.
There is also “Art Blakey: A Thunderous Jazz Drummer, Mentor & Innovator” from Off Beat, which characterizes his distinct style as a combination of power, limb independence, and innovations:
For a deep dive into Blakey’s history and influence, this Jazz Library documentary is well worth watching, with performances from the 1950s through the ‘80s:
This documentary from Bret Primack, aka the Jazz Video Guy, is chock full of interviews:
Jazz Note gives us a chance to listen to the entire recording of Blakey’s “Free For All” and discuss the importance of the album:
In an issue of Downbeat from 2009, Joe Lovano named Free For All as his favorite Blue Note album of all time. "I heard Free For All in my late teens. The raw energy of this recording and the way Blakey called the spirits, how he fed everybody and they fed him, gave them a sense of ensemble and playing together. When Freddie Hubbard came into the band after Lee Morgan, he brought something different.
The Jazz Messengers developed more openness and flow in the way they were playing, moving out of the hard-bop sound and concept, and stepping into new directions." Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded many superb albums during its 35 years, but it would be difficult to top the intensity and spirit of Free For All. This 1964 gem features an incredible lineup that had worked together regularly for the previous three years, one consisting of Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Curtis Fuller, Cedar Walton and Reggie Workman in addition to Blakey.
Blue Note Records presented the short feature “The Story Behind Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers “First Flight To Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings.” It includes interviews with Louis Hayes, Cindy Blackman Santana, Donald Harrison, Wayne Shorter, and Art’s son Takashi.
Hank’s Jazz dedicated this episode to Blakey:
Jeffrey Taylor at Musician Guide has an extensive Blakey biography:
Art Blakey's death in 1990 brought to a close a remarkable and multifaceted career; not only was he one of the most influential jazz drummers of his day, but he was also something of a father figure to dozens of aspiring jazz musicians. His group the Jazz Messengers, which he led for nearly 35 years, served as an incubator for talents as diverse as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and pianist Keith Jarrett. The vast catalog of recordings he left behind documents the development of his trendsetting drumming style, and perhaps more significantly, the evolving sound of his ensemble, which, though its membership was continually in flux, always maintained Blakey's mandate to create first-rate jazz that would, as he remarked in an interview in The Black Perspective in Music, "wash away the dust of everyday life."
Blakey was born on October 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, a city that has produced many other jazz notables, including pianists Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Errol Garner. As a youngster, Blakey worked in the steel mills dotting the outskirts of Pittsburgh; in the evenings he played piano at local clubs. After hearing the immensely gifted Garner play at one such venue, Blakey decided his talents would best be served on the drums. By the time he was 15 he was leading his own band and listening closely to the work of many of the great swing-era drummers, including Chick Webb, Kaiser Marshall, and Sid Catlett.
Blakey played briefly with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1939, then joined Mary Lou Williams's group at Kelly's Stable, a club in New York City. After rejoining Henderson for a year and leading his own band in Boston, Blakey was hired by singer Billy Eckstine to play in his orchestra, a group that included several bebop luminaries--trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Fats Navarro and saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker.
Yawu Miller at AllAboutJazz continues his story:
In 1948, Art told reporters he had visited Africa, where he learned polyrhythmic drumming and was introduced to Islam, taking the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. It was in the late ’40s that Art formed his first Jazz Messengers band, a 17-piece big band.
After a brief gig with Buddy DeFranco, in 1954 Art met up with pianist Horace Silver, altoist Lou Donaldson, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and bassist Curly Russell and recorded "live" at Birdland for Blue Note Records. The following year, Art and Horace Silver co-founded the quintet that became the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Horace Silver left the band to form his own group leaving the name, the Jazz Messengers, to Art Blakey.
Art’s driving rhythms and his incessant two and four beat on the high hat cymbals were readily identifiable from the outset and remained a constant throughout 35 years of Jazz Messengers bands. What changed constantly was a seeming unending supply of talented sidemen, many of whom went on to become band leaders in their own right.
In the early years luminaries like Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley and Jackie McLean rounded out the band. In 1959, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson joined the quintet and—at Art’s behest—began working on the songbook and recruiting what became one of the timeless Messenger bands—tenor saxman Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymmie Merritt.
Blakey’s body of work is far too extensive to even begin to scratch the surface here so let’s just sit back for a while and listen to some of Blakey’s greatest hits:
“Moanin’”:
The Mark of Jazz gives this story behind Blakey’s hit “Along Came Betty”:
In 1958 Benny Golson was inspired by the woman he was dating to write “Along Came Betty”. It has since become a favorite of saxophonists, guitarists and piano players. Eventually, Jon Hendricks wrote some lyrics. The first recording of “Along Came Betty” was on the seminal hard bop album “Moanin’” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. It featured an all-Philadelphia cast of Art Blakey (drums), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor saxophone), Jymie Merritt (bass) and Bobby Timmons (piano).
The Daily Vault describes “Blues March” as “an attempt by the Jazz Messengers to combine bebop with New Orleans style dixieland, and the result is outstanding. Again, the band is able to come up with hot solos while remaining loyal to the marching band rhythm.”
For “A Night in Tunisia,” All Music says:
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers hit their artistic peak with the powerful A Night in Tunisia. This incarnation of the group included Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Timmons, and Jymie Merritt along with their leader, Blakey. As the Messengers entered their most fruitful period for Blue Note, Blakey drove his men relentlessly with powerful grooves, heavy swinging, and shouts of encouragement. This session documents the full power of his assertive leadership and the masterful playing of his sidemen, each rising to legendary status under his tutelage.
Music Matters Jazz wrote about “Free For All”:
In an issue of Downbeat from 2009, Joe Lovano named Free For All as his favorite Blue Note album of all time. "I heard Free For All in my late teens. The raw energy of this recording and the way Blakey called the spirits, how he fed everybody and they fed him, gave them a sense of ensemble and playing together. When Freddie Hubbard came into the band after Lee Morgan, he brought something different.
I’ve gathered a cross-section of interviews from musicians and folks in the music business about Blakey.
From "We Knew What We Had: The Greatest Jazz Story Never Told" Todd Barkan discusses when Blakey hit a herd of wild turkeys:
Radio broadcaster Kingsley H. Smith:
Music writer Ben Sidran talks with Blakely in “Notes from the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame” about his experience as a performer, the importance of band cohesion, and why he liked to be known as an innovator:
Drummer Paul Gavin speaks about Bakey’s band-leading philosophy:
Drummer Quincy Davis asks “Is Art Blakey the most powerful drummer ever?”
David Brent Johnson at NPR explores the fact that so many musicians “graduated” from the Blakey Academy:
But I come to you today on the birthday anniversary of the great drummer and bandleader Art Blakey (born Oct. 11, 1919) to speak of another kind of president: the "class presidents" from Blakey's long-running Jazz Messengers. The hard-bop ensemble Blakey ran functioned as a veritable school of jazz musicianship from 1954 to 1990.
More than 150 musicians served as Messengers, honing their chops, attitude and professional work ethic under the watchful eyes and ears of their mentor. The list of alumni includes trumpeters Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Wynton Marsalis; saxophonists Hank Mobley, Branford Marsalis and Javon Jackson; pianists Cedar Walton, Bobby Timmons, Benny Green and Geoffrey Keezer; bassists Doug Watkins, Jymie Merritt and Lonnie Plaxico; and trombonists Curtis Fuller and Robin Eubanks. (Alan Goldsher's book Hard Bop Academy is an invaluable and comprehensive guide to the history of the sidemen who graced the band throughout its duration.)
That theme was also presented by NPR’s Nick Morrison:
Ninety years ago — on Oct. 11, 1919 — one of the greatest bandleaders and drummers in jazz was born in Pittsburgh, Penn. That man was Art Blakey. For more than 30 years, from the mid-1950s until his death in 1990, he led The Jazz Messengers, a band which became a sort of graduate school and springboard for some of the greatest jazz players of all time; from Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter to Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Watson and beyond.
In this birthday salute, we present five pieces of music that broadly suggest the arc of Blakey's phenomenal career and the number of jazz giants who performed in the great drummer's ever-changing family of blossoming jazz talent. Even though we only have room for five songs, here are the musicians you'll hear in this set with Blakey: Horace Silver, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins, Benny Golson, Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Curtis Fuller, Reggie Workman, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Watson, Billy Pierce, James Williams, Charles Fambrough, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Mulgrew Miller and Lonnie Plaxico. Not bad for starters, huh?
Here’s another hour’s worth of Blakey recorded in 1960:
And here he is with the Jazz Messengers at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy in 1976 :
Saxophonist Jean Toussaint talks about playing with Blakey:
Musician Miles Davis talks about Blakey in a 1978 interview:
Benny Green spoke about playing with Blakey in the Jazz Messengers:
Alto sax legend and jazz educator Bobby Watson spoke on Blakey’s wisdom:
Wynton Marsalis also had some thoughts:
Rick Mattingly wrote for the Percussive Arts Society:
“Art Blakey was the first drummer my drum teacher had me listen to, way back in 1959,” Peter Erskine recalls. “His drumming was swinging, hard-driving, raw, unabashed, and unapologetic. Visceral—but what five-year-old kid knows the word ‘visceral’? Five-year-old-kids recognize honesty, however, and Blakey was as honest a drummer as the day was long. Art just played. As high-fidelity recording techniques got better and better, drums seemed to become more and more popular on LP albums, and Blakey’s name and sound were part of many multiple-drummer recordings including Gretsch Night at Birdland, Drum Suite, and The African Beat, all listening staples in our home. … He was not eight-feet tall, as I had imagined! He was, instead, a very kind man, small in physical stature but huge in heart and power.
“Blakey proved to be the most important mentor in jazz, introducing one great jazz talent after another by way of his Jazz Messengers—players who would go on to enjoy giant careers themselves,” Erskine says. “Perhaps the most telling aspect of Blakey’s power as a bandleader and mentor was reflected in the relationship I had with Jazz Messenger alum Wayne Shorter during our four-year collaboration in the group Weather Report. Hardly a day would go by without Wayne telling some story or recounting an anecdote or life-story lesson that was about Art Blakey. In contrast, Wayne almost never brought up the name of his other boss, Miles Davis. It was always ‘Art this’ and ‘Art that’ with Wayne.
Please join me in the comments section below for more Art Blakey, and hope you will post your favorites.
Denise Oliver Velez October 12, 2025 at 02:00PM From Daily Kos
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