The Jazz Messengers - Hard Bop

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 lineup 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 and 13, 1956, mixed excellent originals by McLean and Hardman with jazz tunes by Mal Waldron and Gigi Gryce, two standards and a Gershwin medley. 

1. Cranky Spanky

2. Stella by Starlight

3. My Heart Stood Still

4. Little Melonie

5. Stanley’s Stiff Chickens

Customer Reviews (5.00 Stars) 3 person(s) rated this product.

Perfect pressing of perfect music. posted on 08/05/2020 5 Stars It’s efforts like this that remind me why I love listening to jazz on vinyl.

Overlooked masterpiece with stunning sound posted on 06/25/2013 5 Stars Reviewer: Jordy Impex is one of the best small audiophile reissue labels out there, and they've put out a masterful pressing of Blakey's overlooked second lineup of Jazz Messengers, featuring Jackie McLean among others. A sort of uber-text for the transitional genre of hard bop, this record mixes originals that gaze at the future of hard bop as well as standards that look to the past. There is no flash, as in the work of David, Adderley, Rollins and so forth - this is low key, even "punk rock" in its aesthetic. McLean is Tom Verlaine to Sonny Rollins' Jimmy Page. It is not surprsing that the jazz musicians from this era with more flash and "out there" playing retained reputations outside of the jazz world - while this lineup of Jazz Messengers is often overlooked. And the pressing, mixed by Kevin Gray et. al, from the original analogue masters in thick and glorious mono - absolutely stunning, unprocessed - one of the best 33 rpm reissues I've ever heard of this era of jazz.

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