Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers are an innovative and influential jazz collective led by drummer Art Blakey. Over the career of the group its revolving door policy led to multiple line up changes providing opportunities for musicians including Lee Morgan and Hank Mobley.

Art Blakey began as a drummer for performers including Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. He teamed up with pianist Horace Silver and the pair gathered together other session men to record tracks, initially as the Art Blakey Quintet then the Jazz Messengers, taking the name Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers after the departure of Silver in 1956. The first Jazz Messengers album was released that year. The bands' adoption and promotion of the hard bop style (or new thing, as it was then) can be heard on their 1965 album, Free For All, which is regarded as their strongest work. The group would go on performing and releasing records until 1990, incorporating names such as, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis along the way. Blakey died in 1990 in New York, having released over 100 records during his career. His contributions to music were recognised by a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.