Art blakey jazz messengers biography definition

Bio

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers not only supplied consistently exciting and innovative music for nearly 40 years, but also provided the experience and mentoring for young musicians to learn their trade.

Though self-taught, Blakey was already leading his own dance band by age 14. Blakey's first noted sideman job came in 1942 with Mary Lou Williams, whom he joined for a club engagement at Kelly's Stables in New York.

Art blakey and the jazz messengers

The following year he joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, where he stayed until joining Billy Eckstine's modern jazz big band in 1944. A subsequent trip to Africa, ostensibly to immerse himself in Islam, revealed to him that jazz was truly an American music, which he preached from the bandstand thereafter.

He adopted the Muslim name of Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, but continued to record under Art Blakey.

In the early 1950s, he worked with such greats as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Horace Silver, and Clifford Brown.

The latter two became members of the Jazz Messenge