Art Blakey's favorite/best messenger group

[mrjazzman]

i've been told that blakey has said timmons, golson, morgan, and merritt was his favorite or best messenger group. can anyone verify that?...............

Edited 31 Oct 2005 by mrjazzman

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Sometimes he would introduce groups as "the best dammned jazz messengers since 1963", so that one was pretty high up there.

Although it redefined their sound and approach, the band with Golson didn't spend all that much time together.

Mike

[BruceH]

Good as that group was, I heard that Blakey didn't care for the sometimes complicated drum charts that Golson wrote.

[Rooster_Ties]

Here's my favorite. Just wish somebody had recorded them in this config...

April 1969: Woody Shaw-tpt; Tyrone Washington-tsx; George Cables-p; Scotty Holt-b

source (scroll down)

Edited 1 Nov 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[BruceH]

I kind of liked the Blakey band with (first) Hank Mobley in the tenor chair, and (later) Wayne Shorter.

[felser]

My favorite was Hubbbard/Fuller/Shorter/Walton/Workman/Blakey, second was W.Marsalis/Watson/Pierce/Williams/Fambrough/Blakey (especially enjoyed Watson's writing for the Messengers, especially "Time Will Tell"). I wish all of the groups between "Indestructible" and "Gypsy Folk Tales" had been recorded more/better. Would have loved to hear more than one semi-bootleg of Billy Harper in the group, would have liked to have heard better what Gary Bartz brought to the group.

Edited 31 Oct 2005 by felser

[Jazz Kat]

I thought it was funny that when Blakey introduced the Clifford Brown, and Lou Donaldson period, he said when they get too old, I'm gonna get me some younger ones. Then he says, I hope to work with them forever.

Just puzzled me..

Anyway, any group he had with Lee Morgan was great!

[felser]

he said when they get too old, I'm gonna get me some younger ones.

←

And he kept getting him some younger ones. I saw him live at Penn's Landing a few months before he passed, and Brian Lynch was with him on trumpet and his playing smoked! I was less impressed with some of the other players (a very young Geoff Keezer, the ever-puzzling Javon Jackson). Steve Davis was very good on trombone, and he had a second tenor player, Dale somebody, who played well. I forget who the bass player was, I'm thinking maybe Essiett O. Essiett.

[mrjazzman]

Good as that group was, I heard that Blakey didn't care for the sometimes complicated drum charts that Golson wrote.

←

Golson told me one night last week that blakey didn't want to do blues march("I don't want to do no march")until golson convinced him that it was a blues and that everything would be alright. It turned out to be one of their biggest hits. Golson had just joined the band and had convinced blakey to let him be it's director.........

[andybleaden]

I liked the Wayne Shorter/Morgan period with or without Curtis Fuller

In fact I liked all of them up until the mid to late 70s really

I really liked the prestige sides like Childs Dance but the Blue Notes cap it for me...excellent all round

Edited 1 Nov 2005 by andybleaden

[felser]

[Golson told me one night last week that blakey didn't want to do blues march("I don't want to do no march")until golson convinced him that it was a blues and that everything would be alright. It turned out to be one of their biggest hits. Golson had just joined the band and had convinced blakey to let him be it's director.........

←

Golson was already a well-respected composer and arranger when he joined the band, Morgan was 19 years old, and Timmons hadn't written any of his signature tunes yet, so it shouldn't have been too much of a stretch for him to become the director. If memory serves, Golson recruited the other guys (Morgan, Timmons, Merritt), who were all from Philly. Timmons had been out on the west coast with Chet Baker and hadn't written (or at least recorded) his signature stuff yet and Morgan had been in Dizzy's big band, blowing away listeners with his break in Tunisia. I heard Blakey twice in the '85-'90 period, and he did "Blues March" (and "Moanin'") both times. I've never particularly cared for "Blues March", but "Moanin'" is the hard bop national anthem, as far as I'm concerned. Timmons wrote some great stuff in that era ("Moanin'", "This Here", "Dat Dere", etc.).

[Brad]

The Golson version is one of my favorites although the Shorter group is probably the best. Not really the JMs is the group on the Birdland albums. It's hard to beat the starpower of that five, though.