Art blakey moanin album. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers 2022-10-23

Art Blakey: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin' album review @ All About Jazz

Morgan, Golson, and Timmons all play two-chorus solos followed by one chorus by Jymie Merritt. Drummer and bandleader Art Blakey provides the aggressive, driving pulse that propels the Jazz Messengers and is so characteristic of the hard bop style. This frequent turnover resulted in Blakey consistently working with the talented youth on the jazz scene. Blakey was 39 at the time of this recording, the Jazz Messengers had already progressed through several lineups, and Blakey remained the only constant. Benny Golson wrote the arrangements and contributed four of the album's six tracks. Benny Golson's "Drum Thunder Suite" was composed to satisfy Blakey's desire to record a song using mallets extensively. His band, the Jazz Messengers, was an extremely talented and influential group from its conception.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

The track listing includes Bobby Timmons' "Moanin';" Benny Golson's "Are You Real? The title track, "Moanin,'" composed by pianist Bobby Timmons, became the greatest hit of Blakey's lengthy career. FOR THE LOVE OF JAZZ All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Pianist Bobby Timmons, a jazz veteran who played with Kenny Dorham's Jazz Prophets, Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt, and Maynard Ferguson, composed the title track and consistently makes his presence felt through his tasteful comping and solos. Hard bop players continued in the bebop idiom by emphasizing improvisation, swinging rhythms, and an aggressive, driving rhythm section. The suite consists of three contrasting themes.

‎Moanin' by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers on Apple Music

Morgan and Benny Golson carry the melodic and solo responsibilities as the only horns in the band. Golson's "Are You Real? The mastery with which Lee Morgan and Benny Golson provide the frontline is further elevated by the solidarity of Timmons, Merritt, and Blakey. The final theme, "Harlem's Disciples," begins with a funky melody, and then a piano solo sets the stage for the concluding drum solo. As a bandleader, he provided his musicians with ample space for solos and encouraged them to contribute compositions and arrangements. Blakey felt strongly that jazz was underappreciated in America and he sought to bring it to a broader audience.

Moanin'

Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers in 1953 with pianist Horace Silver, but, with the group's personnel constantly changing, few artists spent an extended period. As an improviser, Golson's smooth tone and fluid lines contrast with and complement the aggressive playing of Lee Morgan. This song is a prime example of funky or soul jazz. One of the premier hard bop artists and, in fact, the one who coined the term with the 1956 album Hard Bop, is drummer and bandleader Art Blakey. He constantly added new talent to his band and made no effort to prevent musicians from leaving the Jazz Messengers. Despite being only twenty years old at the time of the recording, Lee Morgan had already spent two years touring with Dizzy Gillespie's band.

Golson proceeds into his solo from the end of Morgan's and uses a similar riff-based approach. The album features aspects of blues, funky jazz, Latin-American music, and New Orleans style marching bands. Timmons continues in a bluesy style, alternating piano runs with chords, and progressing to develop upon a series of formulaic riffs. Golson's tunes "Are You Real? Morgan and Golson provide a solid frontline, but the Jazz Messengers rhythm section drives the band and propels the soloists to ever higher levels. Instead of a walking bass, Merritt plays a rhythmically driving bass line, while Blakey plays a swing rhythm with emphasis on beats two and four.

Blakey is notable for his aggressive drumming, use of polyrhythm, musical interactions with his soloists, and his personality. The standard "Come Rain or Come Shine" is performed with the attention to melody and arrangement not typically associated with hard bop, but is convincingly and faithfully represented by the Jazz Messengers. The first theme, "Drum Thunder," is primarily a drum solo with horns playing short melodic ideas in unison soli writing. Morgan's solo makes use of blues inflections and maintains its cohesion through the use of catchy riffs. In the latter half of the '50s, drummer Art Blakey seemed to be searching for a certain sound and mood. Morgan and Golson play typically bluesy choruses, though Bobby Timmons' solo is the highlight of the track.

The song "Moanin'" is one of the tunes that helped to generate the "soul jazz" style of the late '50s and early '60s. His band served as a developmental stage for future bandleaders including Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione, Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, and Bobby Timmons. And by 1958, Blakey had found the right sidemen for the job: trumpeter Lee Morgan, saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt—four Philadelphia musicians who provided the Messengers with down-home soul and sturdy compositions. WE NEED YOUR HELP To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. It is a testament to the great quality of the performers, compositions, and the hard bop genre.

. His solo begins with a simple line, developing into an exciting, chordal conclusion. Dominating this session is saxophonist Benny Golson, with an impressive four of the album's six tunes. Golson performed with artists such as Tadd Dameron, Lionel Hampton, and Johnny Hodges before joining the Dizzy Gillespie band on a tour of South America from 1956-58, the same years Morgan played for Gillespie. His improvisational contributions are indispensable to the sound of the album. The quintet at this time consisted of Pittsburgh native Art Blakey on drums, trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, bassist Jymie Merritt, and pianist Bobby Timmons, all from Philadelphia.

Duke Ellington's bassist Jimmy Blanton especially inspired the Jazz Messenger's Jymie Merritt, though he studied formally with a member of the Philadelphia Symphony at the Ornstein Music School. It features a lyrical melody with trumpet and saxophone playing complementary lines. Hard bop artists retained bebop's standard song forms of 12-bar blues and 32-bar forms as well as the preference for small combos consisting of a rhythm section plus one or two horns. Moanin' is one of the most influential and important hard bop albums due to its outstanding compositions, arrangements, and personnel. Despite the changing personnel, the Jazz Messengers remained the archetypal hard bop group, characterized by an emphasis on the blues roots of the music. Moanin' is one of hard bop's seminal albums due to the extremely high quality of the personnel and compositions featured.

The accessibility of the album is surely a result of Art Blakey's desire to promote jazz as an art at a time when public interest in the music was waning, and the genre as a whole was threatened by the popularity of emerging musical styles such as doo-wop and rock and roll. Influenced by gospel, "Moanin'" makes use of call-and-response technique between the piano and horns. His first gigs were with Tadd Dameron, Benny Golson, John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, and, from 1955- 57, he toured with blues artist B. The rhythm section is minimally invasive in this tune, and all of the listener's attention is drawn to the soloist. This combination of Pennsylvania born musicians collaborated to record one of the milestones of hard bop. Clifford Brown strongly influenced Morgan's style, characterized by an aggressive rhythmic attack, long melodic phrases, and a brassy timbre.