Art Blakey - Jazz Messengers - Limited Gatefold 180-Gram Vinyl with Bonus Tracks

Jazz Messengers!!!!! catches Art Blakey's band at a turning point, and this limited Spanish import presses the 1961 session on 180 gram vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, with two bonus tracks.

Recorded for Impulse!, it was the first album to feature the Messengers as a sextet, with Curtis Fuller's trombone joining Lee Morgan's trumpet and Wayne Shorter's tenor saxophone up front. Bobby Timmons on piano and Jymie Merritt on bass complete the line-up, and it marked Timmons' final recording with the group before Cedar Walton took over the piano chair.

That three-horn front line gives everything a fuller, richer voice. "Alamode" opens with a slinky theme and crisp ensemble writing, while "Invitation" turns the old standard into a brooding showcase, Shorter's entrance stretching the tension before the band surges forward. "I Hear a Rhapsody" swings with easy elegance, and "You Don't Know What Love Is" slows to a tender ballad that lets the horns sing.

Underneath it all, Blakey drives the band with his trademark press rolls and explosive accents, pushing every soloist to dig deeper and play harder.

For hard bop fans, it is an essential snapshot of one of the genre's great finishing schools in transition, and it still sounds bracingly alive.