Art Blakey - Live Messengers
Released - 1978
Recording and Session Information
"Birdland", NYC, 1st set, February 21, 1954
Clifford Brown, trumpet; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Silver, piano; Curly Russell, bass; Art Blakey, drums; Pee Wee Marquette, announcer.
tk.1 Wee-Dot (alternate take)
"Birdland", NYC, 5th set, February 21, 1954
Clifford Brown, trumpet; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Silver, piano; Curly Russell, bass; Art Blakey, drums; Pee Wee Marquette, announcer.
tk.15 Blues (Improvisation)
tk.16 The Way You Look Tonight
"Village Gate", Greenwich Village, NY, August 17, 1961
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Cedar Walton, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass; Art Blakey, drums.
Arabia
The Promised Land
"The Renaissance Club", Hollywood, CA, March 18, 1962
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Cedar Walton, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass; Art Blakey, drums.
tk.8 Up Jumped Spring (alternate take)
tk.11 It's Only A Paper Moon
tk.12 Mosaic
tk.13 Ping Pong
See Also: BNJ-61002
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| The Promised Land | Cedar Walton | August 17 1961 |
| Arabia | Curtis Fuller | August 17 1961 |
| Side Two | ||
| It's Only A Paper Moon | Rose-Harburg-Arlen | March 18 1962 |
| Mosaic | Cedar Walton | March 18 1962 |
| Side Three | ||
| Ping Pong | Wayne Shorter | March 18 1962 |
| Up Jumped Spring (Alternate Version) | Freddie Hubbard | March 18 1962 |
| Side Four | ||
| Wee Dot | Johnson | February 21 1954 |
| Blues | February 21 1954 | |
| The Way You Look Tonight | Fields-Kern | February 21 1954 |
Liner Notes
ART BLAKEY
The tale has been told that once Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers were traveling from one gig to another when they happened to notice a funeral service in progress on the side of the road. Blakey ordered the car to stop and got out to observe the proceedings.
The presiding minister soon reached that point in the ceremony where he asked, "Is there anyone who would like to say something in behalf of the deceased?"
When no one came forward, Blakey spoke up: "In that case would anyone mind if I said a few words for jazz?"
Now that story may be completely apocryphal but there is no doubt that Art Blakey has been carrying the righteous jazz message to the people for at least as many years as he has used the name Jazz Messengers for his various groups.
First the title was given to a big band known as the 17 Messengers that Blakey organized in 1947; at the end of that year the "Jazz" was added to the "Messengers" for a date on Blue Note with an octet that included Kenny Dorham, Sahib Shihab and Walter Bishop Jr. The title was not applied to another of the drummer's groups until 1954 when the quintet comprising Dorham, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Doug Watkins began recording for Blue Note. Blakey, the name, and the various personnel who have represented it all have been straight ahead from that point.
The Jazz Messengers have given us many fine recordings over the years but being a great performing band — spearheaded by its super-energetic, super-responsive leader — it has been at its best in a club situation where a live audience can receive the transmissions and rebound them back on to the bandstand. This double LP presents the Jazz Messengers in just that type situation: two different editions; three venues.
To begin at the end might seem out of order but not when you're dealing with a major find — the quintet with the immortal Clifford Brown that taped the fabled A Night at Birdland on Washington's Birthday eve (February 21, 1954) which first was issued on a 10-inch LP and later on two 12-inch LPs. Side four here is devoted to an alternate take of the previously released Wee Dot, the J. J. Johnson-Leo Parker blues that is still a popular jamming line today; and two tracks that are completely new to us, Blues (as traditional as you can get and credited to no one for precisely that reason) and Jerome Kern's The Way You Look Tonight.
This group was not called the Jazz Messengers at the time. It was not one that worked together on a regular basis but with Blakey and Silver aboard it had enough links with the spirit of what the drummer had done and was going to do in the following year to rate an honorary title. Besides when you have a front line of Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson who is going to quibble over a few Message units?
Brownie and Lou had recorded for Blue Note under Donaldson's leadership in 1953, the same year Clifford had done his own date for Blue Note and one as a sideman with Tadd Dameron for Prestige. After A Night at Birdland he was to join Max Roach as co-leader in one of the most inspired, fulfilling groups in the history of jazz. Two years later he was killed in an automobile crash. He had reached a point of accomplishment only a select few attain, inspiring a whole generation of trumpeters (and other instrumentalists) and thrilling countless listeners with his overdrive attack, golden tone graded from shimmering to brilliant, and essential, unassuming soulfulness. To hear some unreleased Brownie is a rare privilege and the kind of extra special kicks that the untapped jazz library can provide.
The entire group gives off a strong electrical charge. Donaldson was obviously enamored of Charlie Parker but has his own bluesy approach to the idiom. (After a long period of pursuing more of a R&B approach, Lou played the Colorado Jazz Party in the fall of '77 and was leading his own jazz group at Jock's Place in Harlem in the spring of '78.)
Silver had already established himself as a master accompanist, his percussive "comping" like a second, harmonic drummer. After graduating from the Messengers he formed his own quintet of communicators and close to 25 years later is still going strong—with Blue Note, too.
Curly Russell, veteran of 52nd Street, Benny Carter's big band, Gillespie, Parker, Hawkins, Getz, Bud Powell's trio and Tadd Dameron's sextet, played with Blakey in Buddy De Franco's combo in 1952. He was one of the steadiest rhythm players on the New York scene but later dropped out of music after working R&B gigs in the late '50s.
Blakey, in addition to a couple of years touring with De Franco, had been quite visible as the house drummer at Birdland. At the "Jazz Corner of the World' as the basement club was called, he played with everyone, including groups with which he was not completely comfortable. Although he was also well-known and respected for his work with the Billy Eckstine band, Miles Davis and Monk, he truly began to come into his own as a leader with this session in 1954.
This was an all-star jam arranged for the purpose of recording by Blue Note's perceptive president, Alfred Lion. The cast was made up of musicians who obviously enjoyed playing together. This is evident in the immediate fire of Wee Dot Donaldson plunges right in and Brownie follows, Jets open. He knew how to play a phrase, rephrase it or contrast tv.»o similar phrases with leaps from one register to another. He was a master manipulator in the best sense of that word.
A soulful Lou begins Blues in a Parker's Mood groove. Brownie sings in all ranges of his horn. How he could tell a story! Horace gets down with the blues in his inimitable style. I can almost hear Alfred Lion, as he stood by the bar, saying, with that rolled "r" typical of the native Berliner, "Yeah, dot's fenky, cherchy—grroovy."
After Silver's solo the horns come back in to ease on out. The Way You Look Tonight is a burner with Donaldson carrying the theme and Brownie playing another Jerome Kern song — Can't Help Lovzn' That Man of Mine — as a counter-melody. Lou has the bridge but it's Clifford who catapults out of the first chorus to chomp on the meaty harmonic structure. In his third bridge he quotes from The Chase and The Merry Go-Round Broke Down, the way Fats Navarro liked to use it. Lou uses Flight of the Bumble Bee and Country Gardens to launch his third chorus while Horace, In a military mood, paraphrases a bugle call and Over There. Blakey not only takes a dynamic solo but returns on the final bridge to explode once again.
For the first three sides of this LP we jump into the '60s for one of the larger Messenger units (it was a sextet whereas most of them have been quintets) and one of the most powerful. After the Dorham-Mobley-Silver-Watkins group, Blakey had Bill Hardman, Jackie McLean, Sam Dockery and Spanky De Brest. Donald Byrd had been a replacement for Dorham in the first group and Johnny Griffin subbed for McLean in the second. There was also a point where both Johnny and Jackie were present in the front line.
In 1958 there came an entirely new cast with Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Bobby Timmons and Jymie Merritt. The following year Mobley returned, to be replaced by Barney Wilen and, eventually, Wayne Shorter while the group was in France. When Timmons Joined Cannonball Adderley for a while, Walter Davis came in on piano. Bobby returned in 1960 and Curtis Fuller made it a sextet in 1961. By the summer of that year Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton were in and Morgan and Timmons were out.
In Hubbard, Blakey had another devotee of Clifford Brown (Byrd, Hardman, Morgan) but one who, by the time he left Indianapolis and arrived in Brooklyn, had given strong indications of his own personality and potential. He went on, like so many former Blakey-ites to become a leader in his own right and a star in the Jazz firmament, (The Jazz Messengers were spinning off long before Norman Lear and with more artistic success.) Hubbard's reunion with the Messengers at Newport/New York in 1976 was highly memorable.
Wayne Shorter, now a prominent member of Weather Report and, occasionally, V.S,O.P. with Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, went from Blakey to Miles Davis' quintet and even more widespread recognition. It was, however, in his years with Blakey — with an emphasis on his Coltrane (and sometimes Rollins)-directed tenor saxophone and his writing — that he first matured.
Curtis Fuller had come to New York in the significant migratory wave of musical talent from Detroit in the After a tour of duty with the Jazztet he joined the Messengers and played in several editions before he left in 1965. Since then he has toured Europe with the Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Big Band in 1968; worked with Jimmy Heath's group in the early '70s; and served in Count Basie's trombone section from 1975 to 1977.
Cedar Walton also worked with the Jazztet (he had previously been with J. J. Johnson after coming to New York from Texas) in 1960-61 before joining Blakey. After leaving Blakey in 1964 he played with many important instrumentalists including Milt Jackson, Jimmy Heath and Art Farmer; led his own trio; and even rejoined the Messengers as musical director for a Japanese tour in 1973.
Jymie Merritt, who was with Blakey from 1958 until replaced by Reggie Workman in 1962, next moved on to another drummer's band — that of Max Roach, Max still features his composition, Nommo, although Jymie has not been with him for a long while. He is now living and playing in his native Philadelphia.
Blakey's Jazz Messengers have always had a flow of original material from within the ranks. First it was Silver as the main writer with some help from Dorham and Mobley; Golson and Timmons made the next major contributions with Morgan adding to the pot. With Shorter, Walton and Fuller he had three composer-arrangers at one time and Hubbard, too, donated some lines, Here, Walton is represented by two pieces while the three horn men have one each.
Cedar's The Promised Land is a blues that finds Hubbard bursting with youthful energy as the band riffs behind and Blakey thunders away. Wayne, closer to Trane, also has the benefit of band riffs but Curtis' solo is backed up only by the rhythm section. Cedar is rightfully bluesy on his own composition.
Fuller's Arabia was first released in a studio version done in October 1961 along with a rendition of Walton's Mosaic, (The album was called Mosaic — Blue Note 4090 for you collectors.) This "live" performance comes from August 1961 at the Village Gate in New York. Hubbard carries the Middle Eastern theme with fluidity, Shorter juggles motifs a la Rollins but with a Tranish sound; and the smooth Fuller quotes from Work Song.
For sides two and three we move to the Renaissance in Hollywood and March 1962. It's Only A Paper Moon, implanted in the jazz repertory by the King Cole trio in the mid-'40s, first made its Messenger appearance on an album called The Big Beat (Blue Note 4029) as recorded in March 1960. The song entered the Messengers' book in November 1959 when during a photographic session at the Club St. Germain in Paris, according to Shorter, "We had to play something the audience hadn't heard us play before, Art just pounded out the beat, and at the same time this tune came into Lee Morgan's head, Then, we all picked it up"
That is the same arrangement used here as Hubbard buzzes around over a vamp before stating the theme swiftly with the band coming together on the bridge. Wayne, who quotes Three Blind Mice, and Freddie have "strolling" segments (no Cedar) in their solos. Walton's Mosaic opens with a crescendo, moves into a Latin vamp and a punching theme with tempo change and explosive drumming. It is the most forward looking piece in the set and features tightly constructed, probing work by all the soloists from Shorter through Blakey. Art is in rare form, making good use of everything, including cowbell and snare rims.
Shorter's Ping Pong (there was a "live" version on Riverside, done at Birdland in 1963) utilizes a Charleston figure as a canvas to set the song's colors upon. The composer leads off the soloing, using an abstraction of The Donkey Serenade at one point. Hubbard, darting about like a waterbug is followed by Fuller, announcing himself With Us On a Bus. Walton's sleek, single lines are spiced with a two-handed section before he cues back the theme. Then Hubbard cuts loose over the vamp.
Freddie's muted horn delineates his lovely waltz theme, Up Jumped Spnng, an alternate take of this number first released on Three Blind Mice (United Artists 14002). Miles Davis' influence is anything but mute here. This is Hub's feature and Walton is the only other soloist with a short stint between the trumpet portions.
Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers are very much with us in 1978. The cast may be different but the spirit and dedication to the real thing are omnipresent The three red-letter nights in this set are reminders of this heritage and living examples of the glorious past. Long live the Jazz Messengers!
-IRA GiTLER (co-author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies— Horizon)
Issue Variants
No comments:
Post a Comment