The Jazz Messengers - Hard Bop mp3 download

Xtintisha

The second studio album from Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers saw a fresh line up, and was their last with Columbia. The title says it all, it's fairly decent quality, including the bonus tracks that appear on the CD. Jackie Mclean's playing is probably the highlight.

Angana

From Mosaic website:"After the dissolution of the original Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey formed a new edition with Jackie McLean, Bill Hardman, Sam Dockery and Spanky De Brest. It's fitting that their first album would carry the title Hard Bop because that is what they and every subsequent line-up of the Jazz Messengers came to typify.Beyond Blakey's always magnificent and contoured drumming, this quintet's strongest asset was the beautiful, tart blend of Jackie McLean's alto sax and Bill Hardman's trumpet. They phrased together with a forward thrust and their brash, peppery tones created a distinctive front-line sound.Repertoire was always an important factor in the Jazz Messengers' sound, and this hard-swinging session of December 12 & 13, 1956 mixed excellent originals by McLean and Hardman with jazz tunes by Mal Waldron and Gigi Gryce, two standards and a Gershwin medley. The material was more than enough for one album so five tunes were selected for Hard Bop, another three comprised side two of Blakey's Drum Suite and Gershwin medley sat in the can until 1980.In addition to finally gathering this band's December 12-13, 1956 output in one place at last, we also discovered, by going back to the original session tapes, that these sessions were recorded in an early (and successful from a sonic point of view) form of stereo. We have assembled the CD from those tapes, which also enabled us to issue the full version of My Heart Stood Still, which was edited on the mono LP."