Art Blakey

American jazz drummer, author and bandleader, best recognized as organizer & 35 year pioneer of The Jazz Messengers.

Conceived October 11, 1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Blakey was the foster child in a Seventh Day Adventist Family, taking in the piano as he studied the Bible, mastering both at an early age.

In the mid 1930’s, at the Democratic Club in Pittsburgh where he was gigging, Arts’ piano career arrived at an unexpected end as he was requested onto the drums to clear a path for musician Erroll Garner. This episode was clearly at the dance club’s gunpoint proprietor as Blakey recalled many,many times.

This served as favorable luck, & youthful drummer Blakey went under the tutelage of pioneer drummer and bandleader Chick Webb, serving as his valet. Coming back to Pittsburgh in 1937, he framed his own band backing musician Mary Lou Williams. in 1939 joined & went on the road with Fletcher Henderson for a long time, trailed by a years relentless gig at Bostons’ Tic Toc club.

At that point as drummer for Billy Eckstine’s band, he played with any semblance of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, & Sarah Vaughan. At the point when Eckstein disbanded in 1947, Blakey put together the Seventeen Messengers, a practice band, & recorded with an octet called the Jazz Messengers, the first of his numerous gatherings bearing this name. In 1948 he went to Africa, where he learned polyrhythmic drumming & was acclimated to Islam, taking the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina.

In the mid 1950s, he was performing & doing television with such artists as Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, and Horace Silver.

Blakey & Silver hooked up and created  the Jazz Messengers.

This band soon advanced into Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, as Blakey remained the pioneer with evolving individuals, playing together with them until his demise October 16, 1990.

From 1947 until 1972 he additionally recorded consistently with Thelonious Monk.

Blakey is a noteworthy figure in cutting edge jazz and a vital technician with his style on drums.

His commitment to jazz as a teacher & mentor of young, up and coming, players for more than three decades can’t be denied.