Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers: Buhaina's Delight (Blue Note 80 series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note 80 reissue is pressed on 180g vinyl in Germany and mastered from the original analogue tapes. It features the classic sextet line-up, with three tunes by Wayne Shorter.

This edition

• Blue Note 80 series
• 180g vinyl
• Mastered from the original analogue tapes
• Pressed in Germany
• Stereo mix

About the album

Buhaina was the name Art Blakey took when he converted to Islam, so the title amounts to the boss's own good mood, put on record. The band behind him in late 1961 was one of his strongest: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Cedar Walton on piano and Jymie Merritt on bass, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs over two dates in November and December.

Shorter was the band's musical director by then, and his writing is all over it. "Backstage Sally" bounces, "Contemplation" is a moody, modal reverie, and "Reincarnation Blues" puts a fresh spin on the oldest form in jazz. Fuller's "Bu's Delight" is a tribute to the drummer and gives him plenty of space, Walton's "Shaky Jake" swings with a wink, and the band closes with a brisk, swinging take on Henry Mancini's "Moon River," a pop hit that very same year.

Blue Note issued it in 1963, and it captures the Messengers at their most adventurous, with three horns stretching hard bop toward something more open. Turning a film theme about a dreamy river into a hard-swinging closer is just the sort of thing Blakey's band did before breakfast.

Also at Kops: more Art Blakey on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 0838208), a reissue of the 1963 album.