Tag Archives: Art Blakey & the Ja – Moanin’

In the ’60s, when John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman were defining the idea of a jazz avant-garde, few knowledgeable observers could have guessed that in another 30 years the music’s mainstream would virtually bypass their innovations, and only the hard bop style that free jazz had apparently supplanted. Since it …

In 1947 Artwork Blakey formed a short-lived big group that he called the 17 Messengers. He also documented with a smaller sized group known as the Jazz Messengers. In 1954 Blakey was an associate of the co-operative music group with Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins and Horace Sterling silver. …