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Rating: The year 1955, symbolically and not musically, was somewhat of a watershed in the history of Jazz, because in March of that year Charlie Parker died, and in February, Art Blakey and Horace Silver's Jazz Messengers made their “official” debut. You say Charlie Parker, and you think Be Bop; you say Jazz Messengers, and you say Hard Bop: not just Hard Bop, but a true “school of Jazz” where several generations of jazz musicians from every instrumental background were trained, always under the strict guidance of Art Blakey, the guardian spirit of the Messengers until his death in 1990.
Who knows how cold that New York night of November 23, 1955, must have been, but the atmosphere quickly warms up inside Cafe Bohemia, right from the first moments of the evening with Art's deep voice introducing the band: Horace Silver on piano, a very young Doug Watkins on double bass, a historic figure of Hard Bop double bass who left too soon, the “new star on the Jazz horizon” Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone, and the old fox Kenny Dorham on trumpet. The elements are all there, undoubtedly: the setlist is consistent and intriguing, starting with a sly “Soft Winds” by Benny Goodman, a teasing appetizer that highlights Hank Mobley's Bluesy solo in the beginning and enhances his Hard Bop phrasing when Art "decides" to shift gears, accelerate, effectively splitting the solo in two. Kenny Dorham offers a fiery threesome: “The Theme,” a sparkling and superb Hard Bop flavored composition; “Prince Albert,” which is none other than the famous standard “All the Things You Are” with a slight melodic variation and especially “Minor's Holiday” from his “Afro Cuban” released by Blue Note only a few months before the evening in question. “Minor's Holiday” is the pinnacle of Volume 1, also because it represents the peak reached by Blakey's “animalistic” rhythm section, which gradually manages to avalanche all the other members of the quintet, in an exaggerated sonic jubilation. Certainly noteworthy is also a delicate and moving “Alone Together,” a subdued ballad dear to Hank Mobley, where Mobley himself will show great character even in ballad themes, before moving on to a tasty and effervescent “Lady Bird,” present as a bonus track.
A great start for the Jazz Messengers, a beginning that will take them far, although debunking the old saying “who goes slowly goes safely and goes far,” the old Art certainly didn't go slowly... Far, surely, as history has decreed, and perhaps even safely, thanks to certain ethical and religious beliefs that at some point in his life “protected” him, leading him to take tough stands even with various musicians who appeared in his court but were already plunged into the usual drug problems.
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