42 DOWNBEAT NOVEMBER 2010 FRanCis WolFF
A R t B l A k E y A l E A d E R ’ s l O N g l E g A c y l i V E s O N By Dave Helland The first set of the first night of the Jazz Messengers’ weeklong engagement at Chicago’s old Jazz Showcase on Rush Street, Art Blakey is positioning the components of his drum kit: moving the hi-hat an inch this way, making sure the bass-drum pedal is securely in place, that the snare is at the proper angle, moving the hi-hat back a quarter-inch, while a young Bobby Watson blows a cappella on “Chelsea Bridge.” Finished fiddling and fussing, suddenly Blakey comes in forcefully but subtly. Like a basketball that hadn’t been fully inflated, Watson’s playing now has a crisp bounce that wasn’t there before. “That’s all deliberate,” explains the alto saxophonist, recalling his former boss’s way with an ensemble. “As he’s doing all that fumbling around, he’s still listening, he’s waiting. Whatever he’s trying to do, he’s going to have it done because he’s pretty much decided by the way things are going, I’m going to catch him on the bridge, or I’ll catch him at the second chorus. He knows he’s got a chorus to fuck around with the cymbals.” Blakey shaped the music from his vantage point behind his kit. Not content with just the sound of sticks or brushes on drum heads and cymbals, he would change the pitch of a drum with one stick or an elbow or hit the rims and sides, illuminate a rainbow in each cymbal and release the full range of dynamics from subtle to intense at the flick of a wrist. His timekeeping could be minimal when backing Thelonious Monk or metronomic behind a young Messenger who had lost his way. “Art played with you; he never ignored you,” explains bassist Charles Fambrough, “whether you were making it or not. That’s what I loved about him: You could be in trouble and Art would come to your assistance and show you what to do.” “Sometimes the guy playing the drums behind you can be busy and make a lot of noise, but if he’s good it could be inspiring. A good example would be Art Blakey as opposed to Gene Krupa’s way of backing you up,” explains clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, who hired Blakey for the rhythm section of his Four Tet but admits that as Blakey’s fame grew people got the idea that De- Franco had been hired by Blakey. “Art was playing for you—he was also trying to energize you, which he did well.” “He had this ability of putting electricity behind you,” says trumpeter Don Sickler, who was never actually a Messenger but did play in Blakey’s big band. “Art was able to take a small band and play with the intensity and power as if it were a big band,” says drummer Winard Harper. “With his use of dynamics, Art definitely had a knack for bringing things out, even exaggerating them, and making them work.” Born in Pittsburgh on Oct. 11, 1919, Blakey was orphaned as an infant. In his teens he worked as a mill hand and led a band; was husband and father; lost the piano chair of his band to Erroll Garner at the insistence of a thug exposing the snub-nose .38 in his waistband; was taken under the wing of Monk; and spent years in Billy Eckstine’s band, which was an incubator of bebop, home to Dizzy, Bird, Miles et al. The legendary Art Blakey begins in February 1954 at Birdland. Blakey’s introduction of the band—Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson (respectively, nine, 10 and seven years younger than the drummer)—as heard on the classic live Blue Note record outlines his career for the next 35 years: “I’m gonna stay with the youngsters. When these get too old, I’m gonna get some younger ones: keeps the mind active.” Blakey and Silver led a couple more precursors to the Messengers before parting ways in 1956, giving way to the first of many bands billed as “Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.” True to his word, he picked youngsters. Blakey was older than Benny Golson by nine years; Lee Morgan, 18 years; Bobby Timmons, 16 years. Blakey was older than Wayne Shorter by 13 years; Freddie Hubbard, 18 years; Curtis Fuller, 15 years. Blakey was older than James Williams by 31 years; Watson, 33 years; Bill Pierce, 28 years. Older than Wynton Marsalis by 42 years; Benny Green, 43 years; Kevin Eubanks, 35 years. The drummer passed 20 years ago, on Oct. 16, 1990, less than a week after his 71st birthday. The cause was lung cancer. One night at a club in Long Beach, on stage between sets, tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson was advised to work on his long tones. “I had a pretty big sound, but he was Art Blakey,” recalls Jackson. “He played with Gene Ammons—relative to that, everybody has a small sound.” Blakey denied playing the role of teacher, telling writer Kevin Whitehead in his last DownBeat cover story (December 1988) that it was he who learned from the youngsters in his band, that the best advice he could offer was there was no excuse for being late. But the Messengers of the ’70s and ’80s would disagree. There was a curriculum composed of jokes, stories and cliches. That the punishment should fit the crime meant that a solo should reflect the tune one was playing. Not putting all of one’s eggs in one basket meant construct your solo, make it go someplace, build to a climax. NOVEMBER 2010 DOWNBEAT 43