Description
One of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. Blakey is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz.
For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. Recorded in 1956, Art Blakeys Drum Suite is a wonderful hybrid of African, Latin, and hard bop rhythms that prefigures the concept of Afro-beat by at least a decade, and the sheer energy, not to mention its very special and fresh-sounding intimacy, make it especially astounding.
Even more amazing is that the three parts of the suite Blakeys The Sacrifice, Ray Bryants Cubano Chant, and Oscar Pettifords Oscalypso were recorded straight through live, and were only intended to be a pre-take run-through, but as is obvious here, Blakey and company nailed the whole thing right out of the box.
Groundbreaking for its time, and still sounding vital, powerful, and visionary, the Drum Suite album is somewhat of a lost masterpiece that deserves a fresh audience
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.