BLP 4193

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messenger - Indestructible

Released - October 1966

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 24, 1964
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Cedar Walton, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.3 When Love Is New

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 15, 1964
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Cedar Walton, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

1350 tk.3 Sortie
1352 tk.19 Mr. Jin
1353 tk.27 Calling Miss Khadija
1354 tk.33 The Egyptian

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
The Egyptian	Curtis Fuller	May 15 1964
Sortie	Curtis Fuller	May 15 1964
Side Two
Calling Miss Khadija	Lee Morgan	May 15 1964
When Love is New	Cedar Walton	April 24 1964
Mr. Jin	Wayne Shorter	May 15 1964

Liner Notes

THE WORDS right next to “indestructible” in Roget’s Thesaurus are: undying, imperishable indelible, ineradicoble, indeciduous.

I wasn’t sure about that last one, but after checking with Webster and finding it meant evergreen, like leaves, I realized how, along with all the other adjectives in the set, it applied to Art Blakey. All these words, appropriately, were part of a section of the Thesaurus entitled “Stability.”

Stability is a fine word to bring up when on Art Blakey record is on the turntable, or when recollections of his work are the topic under discussion. In the literal sense, his stability as a timekeeper and rhythm section generator has earned him the admiration of musicians from Tokyo to Teheran. In a more general sense, the constancy and reliability of his performances, and of the groups he has led during the past decode, have earned him every laudatory word that has been printed in every language that has ever run a Blakey review.

All of us, I suppose, have our special feelings about the Blakey group we prefer, or the sidemen we favor, among the long list of great talents he has brought to the public ear. The choice is difficult, for each edition of the Messengers in its particular way has had a personal quality of special value, depending largely on the personalities of the principal soloists. To name just a few, the saxophonists have included Jackie McLean, Benny Golson and Honk Mobley; the trumpeters Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham and Freddie Hubbard; the pianists Horace Silver and Bobby Timmons.

On this record, though, you will hear a Blakey sound that ranks for me among the most compelling of all : the group for which Blakey switched from quintet to sextet format. Don De Micheol, reviewing the new step-up just four years ago in Down Beat, augured the general reaction: “This latest edition of the Messengers promises to be the most interesting of them all . . . the addition of trombone to Blakey’s usual trumpet-tenor front line not only adds another soloist, but gives the ensemble passages the depth and color impossible to obtain with only two horns.” He went on to point out that Wayne Shorter, as musical director of the group, was using arrangements that fully utilized the possibilities inherent in a three-horn line-up.

This is the group you hear on Indestructible!, a set of five original works (written by four different members of the group) that display the sextet's values at optimum level.

Mood-setting is one of Blakey's special personal talents. He's into it right from the first moments of The Egyptian, establishing an ominous Charleston-beat figure that fixes the atmosphere; then Cedar Walton takes it up before the melody, an A-Minor unison theme, is introduced by the horns. Notice particularly the contrasting simplicity of the 16-bar release, which keeps riding up and down on live notes: B-C-D-E-F, F-E-D-C-B, the horns voiced, before the initial unison line returns.

Though the rhythmic pattern of the introduction keeps recurring, the performance has all the variety one expects of a Blakey performance, achieved through backgrounds for the solos, and through the constant inventiveness of the soloists themselves. Fuller is at peak form; Lee Morgan gets his teeth into the theme and never lets go, Cedar Walton is dually effective as composer and soloist.

Sortie, like The Egyptian, is a Curtis Fuller original. The title can mean an exit or a military expedition; I lean to the latter interpretation. There is a long introduction, First by Cedar and then by the horns, before the line is introduced. Later, while the horns ore holding those whole notes, Blakey adds greatly to the atmosphere with the suggestion of 12/8 in his dynamic support. Lee tells his story beautifully, with variety in his melodic contours and long, flowing phrases. Blakey feeds Shorter while the latter pleads and wails in his solo, using a tone that could best be described as “flat” if that word were not usually interpreted to mean out of tune. Wayne’s sound is flat in the sense of not sharp or sonorous. After Curtis’ solo, which has touches of J.J., there is some intriguing interplay between Art and Cedar during the latter’s sortie. The final ensemble statement is tagged by an A Flat chord that never resolves to the expected D Flat.

Lee Morgan’s Calling Miss Khadija opens with the valiant, dependable Reggie Workman playing a riff in 6/4, on which he is soon joined by the piano and then also by drums. The horns tightly voiced, this is now revealed to be a tense and fascinating blues, with Lee equally successful as composer and soloist. Wayne refutes the allegations that he has jumped on John’s Trane; he is his own man, and is as recognizable as just about any tenor player in jazz today. Curtis’ groove is gut-level blues. Cedar, during a lithe solo, trades twos with the horns. Then Art goes to work with sticks, snares and hi-hat, for one of his less complex but none the less attention-retaining solos, before subsiding to let Workman return with the original 6/4 figure, leading to the reprise of the theme.

When Love Is New, composed by Cedar Walton, lives up to the title's implication of an air of young, fresh, romance. Except for a 16-bar interlude, by Lee Morgan, this is Wayne's solo throughout, with tranquil support by the other horns and by the composer. At times there is a feeling to this melody reminiscent of a Billy Strayhorn mood, and I can hardly think of a greater tribute than this to Cedar’s melodic talent. Again we are reminded that the Messengers con be a strikingly effective ballad group.

Mr. Jin, introduced with a characteristically dramatic Blakey flourish, is what might best be called on Orient-oriented composition. The staccato manner in which the horns ploy most of the notes in their opening phrases helps to establish this exotic flavor. Wayne and Lee both hove room to stretch out here before those stabbing ensemble notes come back.

And there you have five new views of the indestructible Mr. Blakey. To recommend the album is superfluous. Whether writing record reviews or playing a new release on the air, I have never yet had occasion to read negatively to a Blakey album. I hope he remains indestructible along with the immutably youthful jazz spirit he represents, for many, many years to come.

— LEONARD FEATHER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes[edit]

A NEW LOOK AT INDESTRUCTIBLE

Uncertainties of working life created porous boundaries between various editions and incarnations of several legendary jazz bands of the '50s and '60s. Surely there was classic John Coltrane Quartet music documented before bassist Jimmy Garrison's arrival created the classic John Coltrane Quartet. Or consider the Philly Joe Jones era of Miles Davis's group, which effectively ended on record several years before the drummer ceased working irregular gigs with the trumpeter. Thus the version of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers so justifiably celebrated in Leonard Feather's original liner notes, the Classic Sextet edition of the Messengers, if you will, that featured Freddie Hubbard for most of its existence, begins and ends its discography with sessions on which Lee Morgan occupies the trumpet chair.

The reconfigured and expanded Jazz Messengers heard here began taking shape in June 1961, on an Impulse! album where Curtis Fuller's trombone was added to the Morgan/Wayne Shorter front line that had been in place since 1959. By the time that two live tracks (included on the Blue Note reissue Three Blind Mice, Volume 2) were taped at the Village Gate in August, Hubbard and pianist Cedar Walton had replaced Morgan and Bobby Timmons, respectively, with Shorter and bassist Jymie Merritt staying on and Fuller now a permanent addition. Reggie Workman was the bassist by the time the Messengers recorded Caravan for Riverside the following October, but that was the only personnel change until Hubbard left shortly before this session to form the quintet that cut Breaking Point for Blue Note in the same month. Blakey retained a sextet with the same sound after Indestructible!, but when it was next heard on vinyl Shorter, Walton and Workman had also departed. That closed the books on the Classic Sextet Messengers, which in the course of just under three years created a recorded legacy that includes four albums on Blue Note, three on Riverside, one each on Impulse! and United Artists, and an expanded tentet program on Colpix.

While the improvisational personalities of its members would have set the 1961-4 Messengers apart in any event, the compositional bounty represented by the unit was truly extraordinary. Each of the featured players was primed to take advantage of the ensemble possibilities, while their distinctive approaches as writers gave this particular trumpet/trombone/tenor unit an uncommonly wide-ranging sound. Max Roach, J.J. Johnson and the Jazztet had all employed three horns before Blakey, yet none could match the variety of material displayed on this and so many of the Messengers' albums of the period. Of particular note are the contributions of Curtis Fuller, the only member represented by two compositions on the original Indestructible LP. From his first contribution to the band's book, fittingly titled "Alamode," the trombonist had been the Messenger most likely to incorporate harmonically static sections of scales and modes in his writing. "The Egyptian" and "Sortie" reflect, each in its own manner, this modal slant, which also marked such Fuller gems of the period as "Arabia," "The High Priest" and his arrangement of "Three Blind Mice."

Shorter and Walton, the most prolific and influential composers among these Messengers, are also represented. Walton's "When Love Is New" has enjoyed the longest life of the present tunes, having been reprised by the pianist with Lee Morgan (under the name "Rainy Nights" on Morgan's Blue Note album Charisma) and Woody Shaw, on two of his own sessions from the '90s, and in a version with lyrics by vocalist Diane Witherspoon. Here the piece serves as one of several memorable ballad spotlights for various Messengers in the sextet years. Shorter plays with the moody intensity he displayed on his earlier features "Contemplation" and "I Didn't Know What Time It Was." His own written contributions display the colorations and haunting melodic lines that made the saxophonist such a distinctive writer from his initial contributions to the Blakey book in 1959. "It's a Long Way Down" initially appeared when the original LP was reissued on compact disc in 1987, and represents Shorter's final contribution to the band. "Calling Miss Khadija" is by Lee Morgan, who did more writing during his initial 1958-61 stint with Blakey than on his own albums of the period. Blues forms and waltz tempos were staples of the trumpeter's Messengers compositions, which makes " Khadija" another highly representative title. Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw revived it on their 1987 Blue Note album The Eternal Triangle.

Morgan would continue this second hitch with Blakey into the following year, but quickly turned to work under his own name as his recording of "The Sidewinder" grew in popularity. Shorter, who cut his first disc as a leader for Blue Note in the midst of the present sessions, also departed to join Miles Davis, and Walton and Workman were also gone by year's end. The Messengers, now recording for the Mercury subsidiary Limelight, remained a sextet with Morgan and Fuller aboard on their next album, 'Smake It, and featured both Morgan and Hubbard alongside Gary Bartz on the 1965 Soul Finger. By early 1966, the trumpet/tenor quintet format of the original Jazz Messengers had been reestablished, and then-unknowns Chuck Mangione and Keith Jarrett were the featured players.

- Bob Blumenthal, 2003