Art Blakey

4 STARS ALL MUSIC GUIDE

INCLUDES 1 BONUS TRACK

On December 17, 1947, Art Blakey led a group known as “Art Blakey’s Messengers” in his first recording session as a leader, for Blue Note Records. Around the same time – in 1947 or 1949 – Blakey led a big band called “Seventeen Messengers”. The orchestra proved to be financially unstable and broke up soon after. The use of the “Messengers” tag fi nally stuck with the group co-led at first by Blakey and pianist Horace Silver. The first stable formation of Art Blakey’s celebrated “Jazz Messengers” came to fruition in 1954, and consisted of Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Doug Watkins. That exact group recorded the Blue Note LP The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia in November of 1955. That album would be followed by the Columbia LP presented here, on which Donald Byrd had replaced Dorham on trumpet (the rest of the group is the same). The band, as shown here, would only remain together for a year. The album is highlighted by the earliest recordings of two of Silver’s songs, “Nica’s Dream” and “Ecaroh,” and plenty of typically hard swinging from the band. Horace Silver’s original trio version of “Ecaroh”, with Blakey on drums, has been added here as a bonus

PERSONNEL:

• ART BLAKEY, drums & leader
• DONALD BYRD, trumpet
• HANK MOBLEY, tenor sax
• HORACE SILVER, piano
• DOUG WATKINS, bass

Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, April 5 & May 4 (B1 & B4 only), 1956.

BONUS TRACK:

• Horace Silver (p), Curly Russell (b), Art Blakey (d). New York, October 20, 1952

Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, April 5 & May 4 (B1 & B4 only), 1956.

SIDE A:

• 1 INFRA-RAE
• 2 NICA’S DREAM
• 3 IT’S YOU OR NO ONE

SIDE B:

• 1 ECAROH
• 2 CAROL’S INTERLUDE
• 3 THE END OF A LOVE AFFAIR
• 4 HANK’S SYMPHONY
• 5 ECAROH [original trio version] *

One of the most renowned jazz photographers of all time, Francis Wolff (1907-1971) was also a record company executive and producer, whose skills were essential to the success of the Blue Note record label. Born Jakob Franz Wolff in Berlin, Germany, he soon became a jazz enthusiast, despite the government ban placed on this type of music after 1933. A Jew, in 1939 he left Berlin, where hehad worked as a commercial photographer, and established himself in New York. He began working there with his childhood friend Alfred Lion, who had co-founded Blue Note Records with Max Margulis. The latter soon dropped out of any involvement in the company, and Wolff joined Lion in running it. Wolff took thousands of photographs during the label’s recording sessions and rehearsals. His highly personal visual concept would be forever associated with both Blue Note and jazz as a whole.