The Jazz Messengers – November 23 1955
Down Beat 22 February 1956 Volume 23 Issue 4
Nat Hentoff: Jazz Messengers Blazing a Spirited Trail
THE JAZZ MESSENGERS are a blazing band of jazz evangelists who believe that jazzmen advance most surely when their roots in the jazz tradition are deepest. The Messengers, a co-operative unit in which everyone shares both sides of the ledger, consist of Art Blakey, drums; Horace Silver, piano; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor; Doug Watkins, bass.
Blakey and Silver are by now veterans of the modern jazz scene. Byrd and Watkins are two of several young Detroit jazzmen who have become valuable members of the New York jazz fraternity in recent months. Mobley is from New Jersey, and worked with Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie before becoming a Messenger.
Byrd, incidentally, recently replaced Kenny Dorham, who had been with the Messengers from their start. Kenny is now part of the all-star east/west jazz septet on the February Birdland tour and hopes thereafter to form his own unit with Jackie McLean.
The group was formed as a result of a record date. During the 1954 Christmas holidays, Horace, Watkins, Mobley, and drummer Arthur Edgehill were working uptown at Minton’s. Horace had a record session coming up, and asked Blakey and Dorham to make it along with Mobley and Watkins. The five liked the way they sounded on that session (Blue Note BLP 5058 under Horace Silver’s name), and decided to stay together. They were co-op from the beginning.
AROUND THE BEGINNING of February, the Messengers played their first gig as a unit at the Blue Note in Philadelphia and since have played many of the key jazz clubs in the east and midwest. The title of the unit came from a big band called the Messengers that Art Blakey led at times from 1948-’50.
Art explains his liking for that title for a jazz unit by reminiscing: ‘When I was a kid, I went to church mainly to relieve myself of problems and hardships. We did it by singing and clapping our hands. We called this way of relieving trouble having the spirit hit you. 1 get that same feeling, even more powerfully, when I’m playing jazz. I agree with Reverend Kershaw (who answered the $32,000 television question on jazz) that the spirit in good music is sometimes stronger than the spirit in a church meeting.
“Well, in jazz,” continued Art, “you get the message when you hear the music. And when we’re on the stand, and we see that there are people in the audience who aren’t patting their feet and who aren’t nodding their heads to our music, we know we’re doing something wrong. Because when we do get our message across, those heads and feet do move.”
Silver, too, feels the importance of keeping the mainstream jazz tradition in the group’s playing so that the Messengers can firmly go as far back and as far forward as they feel. “Sometimes,” says Horace, “we can reach way back and get that old-time, gutbucket barroom feeling with just a taste of the backbeat as in Doodlin’ and The Preacher. And in one number, the medium tempo Funky Blues, we even include some boogie-woogie. And then we come around in numbers like Kenny Dorham’s Minor Holiday and Hank Mobley’s Avila and Tequila to more intellectual, more up - to-date forms, but still with feeling. And we can just as easily switch to a ballad. We can adapt to any audience, and to the way any audience feels at a given time.”
A LARGE PART of the Messenger’s book comes from within the band.
Everyone writes, and Art too has a compositional hand in the numbers in that he’s consulted with regard to the percussion effects. “Basically,” says Horace, “‘we just let him play. He can fill in better than we can tell him. Sometimes we do give him suggestions that provide him with ideas.”
About three-fourths of the Messengers’ library consists of originals by the men themselves, along with such modern jazz standards as Confirmation, Woodyn’ You, Night in Tunisia, and Round About Midnight. The rest consists mostly of the more durable popular standards.
“We have the emotion and we have a swinging rhythm section,” says Horace. “That’s the most important thing—swinging. But we’re also trying to create our arrangements so that they build, so that each one isn’t just a first chorus and then blow. We want more meat to our material. That’s why I feel more fulfilled in this group than any I’ve been in. I’ve always wanted to be part of a unit that stays together, that rehearses and builds. I’ve gotten sick in recent years of jam sessions where guys just blow, or of having just a week’s work with a group which then falls out. But a group like the Messengers makes you more ambitious, makes you want to write more because you have somebody to try out your material.”
The Messengers use many devices to structure their arrangements while still leaving large, free spaces for blowing. The scores include interludes, tempo changes, and in some cases, contrapuntal lines, “But we also,’ adds Horace, “don’t want to go too far out. We want people to understand what we’re doing.”
WITH ALL OF THESE cross-devices to channel their blowing into fresh, unique structures that at the same time will not inhibit their fiercely driving emotions, the Messengers are building one of the most exciting repertoires in jazz. Currently on another swing of the jazz clubs, the Messengers may also hit the west coast during the earlier part of the year.
Recording-wise, Blue Note will soon issue a 12” LP of the Messengers that was recorded at Cafe Bohemia. The group at presstime was considering a new—and quite attractive—contract with Atlantic under which the Messengers would record as a unit for that label under their name. (Art Blakey as a single is still signed to EmArcy, but would be borrowed from EmArcy for the Atlantic sessions with the Messengers. )
In an jazz era of multiple experimentations and divisions into “schools,” the Messengers are a healthy and kicking reminder that if a gifted artist’s roots are strong in the history and basic nature of his language, then his own contributions to that language will be all the stronger and more individual because of the nourishment he receives from those roots.
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Richard Havers – Uncompromising Expression – Thames and Hudson
The last session of 1955 was a fully fledged Jazz Messengers gig recorded at the Cafe Bohemia in late November and featuring the same line-up of musicians as on the Horace Silver albums of late 1954 and early 1955. Silver and Blakey shared a common aim: to change the way jazz was presented and break free from the convention of a soloist blowing over standards. They were looking for fresh, original pieces with more structure and form, yet which retained strong links to both blues and gospel music.
When the live sets by the Kazz Messengers came out in two volumes in early 1956, they were the first new recordings to be released on 12-inch LPs. Blue Note had finally caught up with the rest of the industry. Many of its early 12-inch releases were old 10-inch discs with additional tracks to increase their running time, and included Monk’s Genius Of Modern Music, Volumes 1 and 2, Miles Davis, Volumes 1 and 2, and The Amazing Bud Powell, Volumes 1 and 2
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Leonard Feather: The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia Liner Notes
THIS CHEERFUL, animated album starts out with two important precedents to guide it. First, it revives the Messengers name that was originated (many of us may hove overlooked this fact or never have known it) on the Blue Note label when Art Blakey led a somewhat larger band for a session as far back as 1947. Second, it repeats the night club locus operandi idea initiated so fruitfully when the Art Blakey-A Night At Birdland series was offered on Blue Note BLP5037, BLP5038 and BLP5039.
The present Messengers unit came into being as a result of the record sessions under Horace’s name that produced Blue Note BLP5058 and BLP5062. A cooperative unit from the start, they hove shared the belief that jazzmen must retain firm roots in the jazz tradition, and that advancement must never lose touch with this principle As Art Blakey told Nat Hentoff in a Down Beat interview, "In jazz you get the message when you hear the music. And when we’re on the stand and we see that there ore people in the audience who aren't patting their feet and who aren’t nodding their heads to our music, we know we’re doing something wrong. As Horace Silver added, We don’t want to go too far out. We want people to understand what we’re doing “
The Messengers played their first official date together in February 1955 at the Blue Note in Philadelphia. They are still playing clubs around the east and middle west.
At the time of the Birdland recording, Cafe Bohemia was just an obscure Greenwich Village club dedicated apparently forever to the education of the visiting fire-eaters who sought the girliest of girlie shows. In the spring of 1955 a big change came over the club and over the thinking of Jimmy Garofolo, its owner. Jimmy had no previous knowledge of jazz, but when a couple of musicians wandered in off the street (possibly mistaking the place for Café Society, or maybe just hungry for cheesecake) and sat in for a stimulating jam session, Jimmy was impressed. He was better than impressed when Charlie Parker fell by one night. Even to the point of deciding on a jazz policy, and on Bird himself for the opening attraction. Alas, the sign advertising Charlie Parker’s initiation of Jazz at the Bohemia still lies unused n Jimmy’s cellar.
The Bohemia, a somewhat long and narrow room with a bar at one end and a small bandstand at the other, is on street level, just a few doors from Café Society on Sheridan Square. Musicians have embraced it as one of New York’s Three B’s of the jazz club circuit, along with Birdland and Basin Street. The members of the Messengers, singly and collectively, hove enjoyed many pleasant weeks among the hip crowd the club now attracts.
On these records you will hear Art Blakey introducing the other members of the cooperative team. None of them will be strangers to you: Kenny Dorham, the trumpet man from Fairfield, Texas, has his own Afro-Cuban LP on Blue Note BLP5065. On tenor Hank Mobley who has been heard in the Gillespie, Roach and Silver combos and who was also featured on the Dorham set as well as on sessions with Jay Jay Johnson and Julius Watkins. Horace Ward Morton Tavares Silver (you will note that he is a quintet in himself) has become virtually one of the Blue Note Family; his own LPs include BLP5018 and BLP5034 with his trio, BLP5021 with Lou Donaldson, BLP5024 with Howard McGhee, BLP5040 with Miles Davis, BLP5058 and BLP5062 with the Jazz Messengers, BLP5070 with Jay Jay Johnson, and the three Night at Birdland discs on BLP5037, BLP5038, BLP5039. Doug Watkins, from Detroit, is one of the youngest and most promising of this year’s bass crop. Art, as you know, is all through the Blue Note catalogue with Horace, Miles, Monk and others.
BLP 1507
On the first record you will hear the old Goodman Sextet’s Soft Winds, delightfully stretched into an easy going, rocking affair with intermittent doubling of the tempo, which basically is a slow and insinuating one. Then comes the bond’s swinging theme, affording excellent solo opportunities to all. Next in line are Minor’s Holiday, faster and longer and, it seems to me, even more exciting than the version on Kenny’s own LP, Alone Together, announced by Art one of his favorite ballads, and showing Honk Mobley off effectively; and Prince Albert, which Kenny and Max Roach devised and recorded way back around 1947, but which, if we may say so, is for better recorded and played in this new version.
BLP 1508
On the second record Hank Mobley’s fast blues riff Sportin’ Crowd launches a series of leaping solos by Kenny, Hank, Horace and Art; the Burke-van Heusen Like Someone In Love provides, for these ears, the most relaxed and charming moments of the whole session; the steady beat and fine recording of the rhythm section are no less important here than the consistently integrated quality of the solos.
Kenny Dorham announces his own solo on Yesterdays, a very beautifully pinpointed interpretation that somehow contrives to make a legato-sounding performance out of the use of many staccato notes. This is again a personal judgment, but Kenny sounds far maturer and for better engineered here than he did on a previous version.
Everybody seems to grab the nearest clove, maracas, jawbone or teaspoon to lend his hand for a fine overall Latin effect on Avila and Tequila, which has a long percussive preamble before introducing the theme. (Four Messengers, minus Kenny. cut this also on BLP5066 under Hank’s leadership.) Art and Doug Watkins deserve special commendation on this one. Finally the old Gillespie closing theme, Gil Fuller’s I Waited For You, is brilliantly handled by Kenny in the opening chorus, after which Hank and Horace maintain the mood consistently.
So, as Art Blakey says, take off your shoes and have a ball. The Messengers missive comes special delivery through the courtesy of Alfred Lion, and we’re sure you will dig their handwriting, as it bounces off the Bohemia’s wailing walls.
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Bob Blumenthal: The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia RVG CD Reissue: 2001
ART BLAKEY & THE JAZZ MESSENGERS AT THE CAFÉ BOHEMIA VOLUME ONE
During 1955 and 1956, the Café Bohemia was at the center of jazz creativity in New York City. The Greenwich Village club was located at 15 Barrow Street, on the same premises where James P. Johnson, Max Kaminsky, Willie “The Lion” Smith and Wilbur De Paris had led groups a decade earlier when the Space was called the Pied Piper. Owner Jimmy Garofolo had operated the Bohemia as a strip club until i musicians, including Charlie Parker, began coming in to jam in early 1955. Parker, scheduled to be the opening jazz attraction, died in March; but the Bohemia did present several other leading modernists. Oscar Pettiford, who wrote “Bohemia After Dark” while at the club, was the original musical director and led his own big band. Cannonball Adderley became an overnight sensation by sitting in with Pettiford at the Bohemia in June 1955. When Miles Davis was getting his first classic quintet together a few months later, the Bohemia was its base of operations.
Pettiford, Adderley and Davis never recorded live at the Bohemia, though several other important musicians did. George Wallington, who succeeded Pettiford as musical director, documented the quintet that provided early exposure to Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean and Paul Chambers (with Arthur Taylor on drums) on Progressive. An early edition of the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop, with special guest Max Roach, taped the first versions of ‘Jump Monk” and Haitian Fight Song” for the Debut label. Six months after the present music was cut, trumpeter Kenny Dorham returned with his new ensemble, the Jazz Prophets, producer Alfred Lion and engineer Rudy Van Gelder to record his “Round About Midnight” at the Café Bohemia LP for Blue Note.
Jazz history identifies no band more closely with the Bohemia, however, than the Jazz Messengers, thanks to the pair of long-playing albums the seminal quintet made at the club on November 23, 1955. Six additional titles comprised a third volume that first appeared on vinyl in Japan. The present reissue includes three of these later discoveries on each volume, after the original LP program. Note also that all of the music was recorded at a single performance, contrary to earlier sources that listed separate dates for Volumes One and Two.
The five musicians heard here comprise the “original” Jazz Messengers — i.e., the cooperative that began working under that name in February 1955 after recording two 10” albums as the Horace Silver Quintet for Blue Note, and that continued to function as a co-op (with Donald Byrd replacing Dorham shortly after the Bohemia recordings) until mid-1956. The assertive Jazz Messenger style, however, really began taking shape on Silver’s first recordings with Blakey in 1952, and continued to manifest itself in various studio encounters involving the pianist and drummer for nearly a year after their working partnership had dissolved. Certainly the February 1954 live albums Blakey cut at Birdland with Silver, Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson and Curly Russell (also available in the RVG Series) anticipate the Messengers sound; and such landmark 1955 sessions as Mobley’s debut as a leader (the Messengers minus Dorham), the Dorham dates heard on his Afro-Cuban LP (Messengers minus Watkins plus added starters) and Donald Byrd’s sextet date on Transition (the post-Dorham Messengers plus Joe Gordon), as well as the material cut for Columbia in the Spring of 1956 are part of the story. But the original five are heard together only on the two studio sessions by Silver, which focus on his compositions, and the live Bohemia material.
Blakey was the band’s elder statesman, the front man, and clearly first among equals (after all, he kept the Jazz Messenger trademark when the co-op was dissolved), and his introductory Volume One make his pride in the music and his fellow-musicians crystal clear. Silver had been central to the band’s success, with his intense piano soloing and comping and such immediately popular compositions from the studio sessions as “The Preacher” and “Doodlin’.” He was already one of the most widely imitated pianists. Bassist Doug Watkins was part of a new generation of Detroit musicians that were in the process of invigorating the New York scene. Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley was a new star at the time, as Blakey comments, known initially for his work with Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie and rapidly becoming a recording session favorite. Trumpeter Kenny Dorham, like Blakey, was a veteran of the Billy Eckstine band, Charlie Parker’s quintet, and the drummer’s own 1947 Messengers octet that suggested the name of the cooperative. Dorham had already earned a reputation for being perennially underrated that would follow him through his career; but the inner circle knew his worth as both soloist and composer. Note that Blakey calls Dorham the band’s “arranger,” suggesting that (even with Silver present) the trumpeter served as the Messengers’ musical director.
Blakey also calls Dorham “the uncrowned king.” Amen to that, and Hank Mobley makes two. The beauty of their conceptions is finally coming to be recognized and together they were truly special. "That horn section was so hip, you know, they were super hip," Silver remarked about Dorham and Mobley in 1990.“The way they phrased and the lines they played, their harmonic knowledge was so beautiful.” Superlatives are due the rhythm section as well. Thank goodness Lion and Van Gelder caught them at work, where they were able to stretch out and deliver a bit of history.
Blakey overstates the age of “Soft Winds” in his spoken introduction The Messengers’ junior member, Doug Watkins was already five years old when the Benny Goodman Sextet first recorded the tune in 1939. On that original version, the theme is 16-bars long, but the solos are played over the more typical 12-bar blues scheme. Here, the melody has been reduced to a 12-bar chorus. Mobley, Dorham and Silver all solo at length, and all receive double-time support along the way. (Dorham gets it twice, Silver for the longest stretch.) Both horn players display their intimate sounds, relaxed flow and harmonic sophistication; they also knew how to leave space for the infectious goading of Silver and Blakey. Silver’s solo is so indicative of his style, which turns the simplest ideas into probing extended episodes. And don’t miss the subtle propulsiveness of Watkins on this extended performance.
“The Theme” became a universal jazz sign-off after it was adopted by the Messengers and Miles Davis. Authorship of this line on “I Got Rhythm” changes has been disputed, though the credit to Dorham makes sense after hearing the harmonized main theme and written bridge of this version. Both Dorham and Mobley begin their solos with a chorus of strolling (i.e.. piano lays out), which further highlights Blakey’s inspired support. Everyone in this band loved quotes, and along the way here we get two allusions to Thelonious Monk lines on the same changes as Mobley cites “52nd St Theme” and Silver flashes a bit of “Rhythm-a-fling” Watkins walks a half-chorus into a Blakey solo filled with his patented phrases and galvanizing high-hat accents on the second and fourth beat of each measure.
Speaking of quotes, Mobley drops one of the all-time greats on the original March ‘55 recording of "Minor’s Holiday" by Dorham’s Afro-Cubans, when he works “Rock-a-bye Basie” into the close of the tenor solo. This version is faster than the original. and gloriously intense from Blakey’s introduction through the coda. which anticipates the Dorham tune "Monaco" heard on the trumpeter’s own live Bohemia recording. Dorham is so loose and yet lyrical, and so attuned to the to the rhythm section in his opening solo. After Mobley and Silver (who is on the studio version but does not solo there) display their own sensational up-tempo chops, KD returns to trade fours with Blakey and join the drummer in a rare extended duet. In all, one of Dorham’s greatest performances.
Mobley steps forward to announce “Alone Together,” providing a rare sample of his speaking voice, then plays a warm chorus and a half. He doubles the time while the rhythm section holds the original tempo, then turns more reflective on the coda. Dorham also recorded this classic ballad in what may be the definitive jazz version on his 1959 Quiet Kenny for Prestige/New Jazz.
“Prince Albert,” a classic line on the chord changes of “All the Things You Are,” first appeared on a 1949 session issued under Max Roach’s name that was made by Charlie Parker’s quintet while in Paris for that city’s International Jazz Festival, with James Moody’s tenor sax in Bird’s spot. That early extended studio performance (nearly six minutes) was briefly leased to Blue Note, where ¡t appeared on the 10” Roach/Blakey LP New Sounds. This version is slower, and adds the familiar Gillespie/Parker vamp at the front end. Dorham is in a brilliant zone from his opening break, with Blakey growing more interactive over the course of the trumpet solo; and Mobley displays impeccable poise as the rhythm section mixes it up behind him. There are 16 bars of fours in the final chorus.
The first of this volume’s bonus tracks is Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird,” which Dorham cut in another excellent live version with Barney When and Duke Jordan on a Wilen session for French RCA in 1959. KD’s harmonic mastery is evident throughout the trumpet solo, and he quotes the Harry James hit “I Had The Craziest Dream,” which he would also go on to record on the Quiet Kenny date. Mobley swings with such ease, while Silver,as always, adds percussive contrast and Watkins walks two choruses. After the fours, Dameron’s original shout chorus with drum breaks leads to Miles Davis’s variations on the “Lady Bird” changes, “Half Nelson.”
‘What’s New?” is a fitting feature for Watkins, having been composed by fellow bassist Bob Haggart. It spotlights Watkins’s beautifully lean sound (sort of middleweight as bass players go, to borrow an adjective often applied to Mobley) and lively attack.
“Deciphering The Message” exists in a later studio version on Columbia that also remained unissued for decades. It is a characteristically bright Mobley opus, with a fanfare introduction that returns initially to announce Blakey’s solo and again at the coda. Mobley gets to stretch at the brisk tempo, then Dorham enters quoting “Crazeology” We can feel the pressure building to a drum explosion; but Blakey merely plays breaks in the arrangement, then brings the temperature down for the out chorus and a brief taste of “The Theme” to announce set’s end.
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Blue Note Spotlight – November 2012
The nondescript brown brick building at 15 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village currently houses the Barrow Street Ale House, but drink at the former home of the Café Bohemia for long enough, and the swish of Art Blakey‘s ride cymbal might just start emanating from the walls. At this old jazz haunt, the walls have ears, or they did. On November 23, 1955, Blakey and the third incarnation of his then relatively new group, the Jazz Messengers, gathered at the Café Bohemia for a late-night “cooking session” recorded for Blue Note that would immortalize a Greenwich Village of the mind lost to the sands of time.
On At the Café Bohemia, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, the Jazz Messengers were cooking hard bop at a time when it was the pièce de résistance at every jazz club in the Village, and Blakey was the master chef who set the standard for a thriving scene. This was the lineup of the Jazz Messengers that paired Blakey with the indomitable pianist Horace Silver, supported by tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, and bassist Doug Watkins—a syncopated feast of the senses.
The chef partakes, and the effervescence is palpable; Blakey feeds off the crowd, which listens with rapt attention until the end of a solo or a tune. The Jazz Messengers needed a captive audience to deliver their message in full, and their ferocious intensity was best captured live. Never mind recording difficulties; the diminutive, brick-and-mortar venue only fit 100 at full capacity, and was always packed, but despite its casual atmosphere, no clinking glasses or idle chatter interrupt the cut.
Vol. 1 begins with Blakey’s rich baritone: “And at this time, ladies and gentlemen, for those who’ve come in late, we are now having a little cooking session for Blue Note right here on the scene—putting the pot on in here,” Blakey says. “And we’d like for you to join us and have a ball.” The two volumes feature some classic tracks, among them “The Theme,” “Alone Together,” “Like Someone in Love,” and the Latin-tinged “Avila and Tequila.”
It was an intimate setting for a player of Blakey’s stature, but the Cafe Bohemia had long established its jazz pedigree. Previously known as the Pied Piper in the ’40s, the club played host to early Dixieland bands led by Max Kaminsky, trumpeter Frankie Newton, New Orleans-style trombonist Wilbur de Paris, and cutting contests between legendary stride pianists James P. Johnson and Willie “the Lion” Smith.
The Pied Piper became the Café Bohemia in 1949, when it was bought by James Garofolo, who strayed from strict jazz programming until Charlie Parker offered to play a residency there to settle his unpaid tab. Parker had begun frequenting the club—he lived across the street with poet Ted Joans at the time—and was allegedly kicked out one night in early 1955 after drinking too many Brandy Alexanders. Parker died that March, but the club’s heightened visibility from promoting the residency was enough to gain the necessary momentum for Garofolo to make the transition to progressive jazz impresario.
Before long, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Gerry Mulligan, and Lennie Tristano were playing there, with Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach often in the audience; Herbie Nichols was hired to play between sets. Jack Kerouac, Larry Rivers, David Amram, and other members of the Beat Generation flocked there for inspiration. The Bohemia had lived up to its name, bearing witness to a microcosm of the broader bohemian zeitgeist on any given night. When Blakey arrived, they were ready for him.
Blakey had a revolving door policy when it came to personnel, and this iteration of the Jazz Messengers is perhaps best appreciated through turning a critical lens on the front line of Mobley and Dorham. Vol. 1 opens with “Soft Winds,” a medium-tempo blues in the vein of “Moanin'” that serves as a vehicle for Mobley’s lyrical dance through the form that was his hallmark as a player. Dorham and Silver show off their technical mastery here, but the track belongs to Mobley, who could take a simple blues and tell a melodic shaggy dog story that always seemed on the verge of climax without ever getting tedious.
Lacking the fiery bluster of Coltrane or the cavalier swagger of Stan Getz or Zoot Sims, the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone is often shortchanged by critics; he makes it seem too effortless. But Mobley was a consummate craftsman, able to build an improvised solo that paid off every call-and-response riff with a sense of overarching narrative structure. Mobley maintained his own codified style, yet whatever he played cohered with the melody; no easy feat. Tenor players proved their mettle with Blakey through an understated approach that fostered group chemistry—Wayne Shorter and Benny Golson were among the others that meshed with his aggressive drumming style—and Mobley was ideal for the role.
The saxophonist begins his “Soft Winds” solo softly, playing a hair behind the beat on a series of eighth-note lines. By the second chorus, he has introduced triplets and sixteenths into the mix, weaving longer lines that establish rising action. By the third chorus, he stakes out his territory with a stentorian honk at the bottom of the horn that immediately jumps up an octave. He plays with this motif throughout the chorus, always with an air of restraint and a keen awareness of negative space that Blakey peppers with his trademark snare accents over an unerring bass line laid down by Watkins.
When Blakey goes into double time, Mobley doesn’t stutter or bleat; his adherence to narrative continuity is impeccable, and he continues developing the same ideas, only twice as fast. He finishes his final chorus in straight time with a quicksilver sixteenth-note flourish and an emphatic half note that propels Dorham into his solo.
The trumpeter shines on the searing ballad “I Waited for You,” a choice cut from Vol. 2 that highlights his unvarnished sound. A technical virtuoso, Dorham veers towards a minimalist style; he has a purity that seems to access some sonic truth, especially when playing ballads. Dorham, like Mobley, is too often critically overlooked, and for the same reason—his effortless playing falls somewhere between Clifford Brown and Chet Baker—but he too favors the middle path, the class act of jazz trumpet. His penchant for subtle narrative moves is evident throughout the ballad, with Dorham starting in the lower range before gravitating upwards, sustained notes yielding to accelerating riffs until a tender denouement that elegantly restates the melody. When his testimony is finished, the respectful applause reveals an audience that has just witnessed a kind of spiritual communion.
The critical mass of jazz fans and the excitement of the Village in 1955 that led to this seminal record date justifies its inclusion in the jazz canon, as much a historical artifact as it is a testament to Art Blakey‘s enduring legacy. More than the sound of surprise that pervades the recording, the sound of applause and the visceral sense of rising body heat on a cozy November night still has the power to instantly transport listeners to the golden age of hard bop.
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Michael Cuscuna: The Jazz Messengers at Cafe Bohemia Volume 3 Liner Notes (BNJ-61007)
Although The Jazz Messengers has been the title for Art Blakey's various groups since 1956, the original Jazz Messengers was a co-operative group, consisting of Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Doug Watkins and Blakey. The band's origins are as unique as its members' music.
Horace Silver made his debut as a leader for Blue Note in late 1952 with trio sessions that included Blakey. The pianist and drummer continued to appear together sporadically on various dates for the label by Lou Donaldson, Miles Davis and others. In February of 1954, Alfred Lion, owner and producer of Blue Note, put together an all star band to be recorded live at Birdland under Blakey's direction. Horace was not only the pianist, but the composer of three of the tunes.
In November of the same year, Lion approached Silver about recording again as a leader, but this time with horns. When Lion asked who he would ideally like on the date, he asked for Hank Mobley and Doug Watkins, who had recently been working in his quartet and Minton's and to round out the quintet Kenny Dorham and Art Blakey, thinking that would be impossible. But to Horace's delight and surprise, Lion assured him that there would be no problems. And that quintet was soon rehearsing for the first of two sessions that would eventually be issued as Horace Silver And The Jazz Messengers (BLP 1518).
The second session took place in February of 1955 and so did their first live engagement, which was at a Philadelphia club fittingly called the Blue Note. A month later, the group without KD recorded Hank Mobley's first album (10" BLP 5066). At the same time, KD's first Blue Note sessions featured Mobley, Silver and Blakey at the core of an expanded group (BLP 1535).
In 1947, Art Blakey had led a big band known as the Messengers, refering to the fact that most of its members were of the Moslem faith. That same year, he used that name for his first Blue Note date with a septet that included KD. The name lay dormant until this very special quintet assembled for the Horace Silver date. They resurrected the name, adding the word jazz to it. Art Blakey explained the modified name to Nat Hentoff in Down Beat, "In jazz you get the message when you hear the music. And when we're on the stand and we see that there are people who aren't patting their feet and aren't nodding their heads to our music, we know we're doing something wrong." With a repetoire of Mobley and Silver originals as well as standards and with the combined drive of Blakey, Silver and Watkins, it would be hard to imagine anyone nodding on this music.
Leonard Feather best described the Cafe Bohemia in his liner notes to Volumes I and II of this collection: "Cafe Bohemia was just an obscure Greenwich Village club dedicated apparently forever to the education of the visiting fire-eaters who sought the girliest of girlie shows. In the spring of 1955, a big change came over the club and over the thinking of Jimmy Garofolo, its owner. Jimmy had no previous knowledge of jazz, but when a couple of musicians wandered in off the street and sat in for a stimulating jam session, Jimmy was impressed. He was better then impressed when Charlie Parker fell by one night. Even to the point of deciding on a jazz policy, and on Bird himself for the opening attraction. Alas, the sign advertising Charlie Parker's initiation of jazz at Bohemia lay unused. (Parker died shortly before the date.) The Bohemia, a somewhat long and narrow room with a bar at one end and a small bandstand at the other, is on street level on Sheridan Square. Musicians have embraced it..."
On November 23, 1955, Alfred Lion and Rudy Van Gelder moved into the club to capture the Jazz Messengers live, ten months after the band's first live gig.
The fruits of that evening are now history thanks to AT THE BOHEMIA Volumes I and II (BLP 1507 and BLP 1508). And now we have unearthed a third volume from that very special night.
Included are two Mobley originals, Deciphering The Message and Hank's Symphony, both of which the Messengers would record in this studio six months later for CBS, although only the latter would be issued. And like the CBS album, Hank's Symphony, an attractive and exotic theme, with Blakey on mallets, is basically a drum feature. Deciphering The Message is a delightful, boppish cooker with a rousing Mobley solo. At times, he sounds as if he is almost parodying the JATP style of crowd pleasing tenor. Another example of his wry humor is his artful incorporation of a Bye Bye Blackbird quote at one point. KD and Horace are also powerful and interestingly show their Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell roots respectively to a greater degree than is evident in most of their work. The tune ends with a brief version of The Theme.
Tadd Damerson's Lady Bird is a happy performance on which everyone solos. KD is just singing, skipping along with that feel that only he could have gotten. Mobley is a master of fluency.
Doug Watkins solos on both Deciphering and Lady Bird, but his real featured number on What's New on which he plays the melody and takes the only solo to the accompaniment of just piano and drums. Watkins was truly a master of instrument with a rich tone, great soloing ability, brilliant choices of notes and a rhythmic drive that could keep up with Blakey's. It would be sad if history overlooks the contributions of a man such as this.
On the bandstand, What's New was played in conjunction with Alone Together (BLP 1507) which spotlighted Mobley and Yesterdays (BLP 1508) which spotlighted KD.
This record is completed with two perennials, Just One Of Those Things and Gone With The Wind, with the solo space on both given to KD, Mobley and Silver in that order. Despite from minor fluffs on the outthemes of both standards, the performances certainly merit release. Check out especially Mobley's non-stop, stream of creativity of Things.
Soon after this date, Kenny Dorham would leave the Jazz Messengers to begin forming his own band the Jazz Prophets, which coincidentally would record live at the Cafe Bohemia for Blue Note six months later.
His replacement was Donald Byrd. And it was under Byrd's name for the Transition label that the Messengers with trumpeter Joe Gordon added would record again in December of 1955.
In 1956, the group continued to work and signed a record deal with CBS, which resulted in one album. By June, the Jazz Messengers has ceaased to exist. Blakey took the name and formed a new band. Silver took Byrd, Mobley and Watkins and formed his own quintet. To fill out their contractual obligations with CBS, both band leaders made their own albums for the company.
The Horace Silver Quintet, now with Louis Hayes on drums, returned to the Blue Note fold in November to record the classic, Six Pieces Of Silver (BLP 1538). In early 1957, Hank Mobley resurrected the Jazz Messengers in a sense, making two albums with the Silver-Watkins-Blakey rhythm section, one of which included Milt Jackson (BLP 1544) and one with Art Farmer (BLP 1550).
Mobley continued as a member of the Silver band during 1957, and, in 1959, he rejoined Blakey for eight months. All the members of the original Jazz Messengers continued to cross paths in every conceivable combination at Blue Note dates. But that first group in that first year seems to have contributed an extraordinary amount of creative input to the history of jazz and the direction that it would take for many years to come.
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Down Beat 18 April 1956 Volume 23 Issue 8
This is the Messengers’ first LP’ under their own name, their first 12” set, and their first recording in a club. The room was New York’s Cafe Bohemia, and a second volume recorded the same night will also be released. Personnel of this co-op unit is Kenny Dorham (since replaced by Donald Byrd), tenor Hank Mobley, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, and bassist Doug Watkins. This LP while generally stimulating, is not as satisfying as the same unit’s recent 10” set under Horace Silver’s name (Blue Note LP 5062).
One chief reason for this not making the full five is too much Mobley. On Winds, he plays too long for what he has to say and his work on his ballad vehicle, Alone Together, is competent but undistinguished. He lacks the imaginativeness and individuality of conception of Kenny Dorham, the other and much better hornman on the date.
Dorham, far too unrecognized for too long a time, is in drivingly incisive and sometimes dazzling form (Minor’s Holiday). The rhythm section has the strength of 10, and Horace Silver's solos are about as “down” as is possible, short of actual excavation. Also somewhat lacking here, however, as contrasted with the previous 10”er is a degree of cohesiveness in programming. Winds is too long in any case and the LP would have been further strengthened had a more collective number been substituted for Alone. But it’s still a session worth hearing. The Messengers continue to have more explosive vitality than most other modern small combos. (Blue Note 12” LP 1507)
 |
| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Leonard Feather: The Blue Note Story
In all its efforts down through the years, one element has been continuously present in all of Blue Note's presentations: quality. If is doubtful whether any other company, major or minor, can truthfully claim to have taken as much endless care of every single detail on every recording. From the moment session is conceived until the day the record reaches the stores, this painstaking attention to quality is present every step of the way — in the material used for the pressings, in excellence of the recording, in the design and production of the covers, and in everything else that goes to make a finished, thoughtfully prepared product.
After sixteen years marked by accomplishments of this nature, and by the successful discovery of so much significant talent, Blue Note Records may well be proud of the contribution it has made in the field of jazz.
(Full Text Here: https://blp1553.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-blue-note-story-1955.html)
Session Information
Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Horace Silver, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Blakey, drums
Cafe Bohemia, Greenwich Village, NY, November 23, 1955
First Set
tk.1, Blues, rejected
tk.2, Like Someone In Love, Blue Note BLP 1508
tk.3, Deciphering The Message, rejected
tk.4, I Waited For You, Blue Note BLP 1508
tk.5, Minor's Holiday, Blue Note BLP 1507
Second Set
tk.6, Soft Winds, Blue Note BLP 1507
tk.7, Avila & Tequila, Blue Note BLP 1508
tk.8, Yesterdays, Blue Note BLP 1508
tk.9, What's New
tk.10, Alone Together, Blue Note BLP 1507
tk.11, Deciphering The Message / The Theme
Third Set
tk.12, Prince Albert, Blue Note BLP 1507
tk.13, Just One Of Those Things
tk.14, Gone With The Wind
Fourth Set
tk.15, Sportin' Crowd, Blue Note BLP 1508
tk.16, Prince Albert, rejected
tk.17, Hank's Symphony
tk.18, Lady Bird
tk.19, The Theme, Blue Note BLP 1507
The Theme (incomplete), Blue Note BLP 1508
No comments:
Post a Comment