You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Blakey Musicians - #4

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

Peter and Adam answer a user question about jazz musicians who got their start with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey Peter. Yep. Where'd you get your start? Art Blaking and the jazz messengers. Really? Well, I got my start listening to the music of Art Blakey via Art Blake in the jazz messenger. Oh, cool. I got my start with Miles Davis.

Awesome. Oh, nice. Have you shared the stage with Miles Davis? No. Okay. I'm Adam M. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear of Podcast.

Daily Jazz Advice coming at you in 2019. Season three. Excited to be here. What's up? And you're watching the You'll Here podcast on YouTube, probably. Me? I don't watch it. I do watch it sometimes.

I'll be honest. Really? Yeah, I'll chill the living. We got set up. I'll check us out. Oh, bro, you have some lint there on your shoulder. That's going to show up on the podcast. You're not going to like that.

This is amazing. This is 2018 Lint, but you're seeing it in 2019. Time travel. All right, so we have a question today. Do we know where this question came from or just magically appear? It came from a listener, John, from email. And John asks. Via email?

Yes. Well, he says, I love the podcast. And wonder if you might provide a retrospect. of some of the lesser known musicians who got their start with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. I only recently discovered Johnny O'Neill and wonder who else you might recommend listeners check out. Thanks so much. Yes. Well, let me think about this as I search Wikipedia for an answer. No, it's funny because Johnny O'Neill, I saw Johnny O'Neill recently. Yeah. St. Louis's own, John E. St. Louis's own. I actually saw him up in New York, and

you know, he's still going strong, doing his thing, singing, playing. And yeah, he's definitely one of the I don't know, I guess he did get a start. I mean, that's kind of like the, maybe on the New York scene in playing with Blakey. He's awesome, too. Yeah. And so we were thinking about people that maybe it was lesser known, but also that maybe it was known but forgotten.

So this was fun, and we did start to come up with our own list. And, but before that even, I don't know if you know where Art Blakey got his start. Well, I think this is a good place to start. Where did Art Blakey, a little undiscovered Art Blakey get his first big break? And that would be in some really classic, big bands. Fletcher Henderson and Billy

Exxonite. He played with both bands. Man. He was coming out of a big band thing. We always think about him as, you know, an incredible bebop drummer, which he was. And certainly got his start there as well, playing with the bebop masters. Blakey with a big band. Blakey with a big band. Yeah. Blakey with Thelonious Monk. Those were courts. I love that.

That wasn't done. I mean, it was done. I could have heard that forever. But now talking about people, so this will be kind of all over the place. But Johnny O'Neill, and I'm going to pull my my Piaz de resistance. I'm going to hold up on that name. Okay.

Remember, that's a little bit of French illusion there. So keep that in mind. But because he was just in studio with us, he recently, Jeff Teaser. Did you know he got to start?

Yeah, he was a teenager, wasn't he? He was, yes, he was very fresh. Because I remember seeing him with Blakey around 1980, 89 in New York. So he was probably 18, 19 years old then. Killing it.

I was like, I mean, I was like, who is this dude? And if you think about how Jeff Kieser looks, think about how he looked at age, 18 and 19. 19 in the late 80s with our Blakey but I mean killing it and um so that was a cool one and then you know right before that when I saw a blakey I think in 87 when I first went up to New York

it was Terrence Blanchard little unknown Terrence Blanchard with some huge glasses I remember I was like wow nothing's changed right with Donald Harrison as well and I think Donald Harrison was playing an alto then with with him but a saxophonist and this is where my French will come in handy again. Jean Toussaint. Jean Toussaint. Yeah, he was a is. Actually, I don't know where he is now, but he was a from London, I believe. Definitely a lesser known. With a French name, but from London. Lessor known

member of the Blakey band. And worth checking out. Worst checking out. It was killing. I remember that. I mean, so many people, you know, we have on our list here, Winton and Bramford, Marcellus. Have you ever heard of them? I have. Winston and Branflakes, as I like to call them. But they got their start. I mean, you know, they got their start when they were children. The streets of New Orleans on the

French quarter. But really made their names with Blakey and I'm assuming learned, you know, what everybody learned with Blakey, which is how to be an incredible leader of a band. Right. And so many of musicians that we love and that have become such a huge part of this music got their start with the school of Art Blakey, you know? Yeah. And fun fact, I think Brantford, I at least remember hearing this on recording or singing video, was playing alto, I believe, with Blakey at that time. And I'm wondering, I'm just going to see if as we vamp, if I can pull this up but he was playing so i think there was a tenor player also um in the band with winton and branford yes here we go how how fast can peter both pull up the information and talk about jazz why am i speaking oh this is cool so this is a video of i remember listening to this i don't remember a video of web city and like went is just killing on here blakey's wearing like just he basically looks like he has on like a prom tuxedo oh yeah i used to have this on vhs i used to have this on vhs oh you did yeah for i remember hearing it and went and went and got big glass they must have been in style then man but i mean winton was just like everybody was really wild by his

technique you know and i'm just trying to see if they have the other musicians on here what about some chambon bonus what about like uh robin eubanks robin yu miss that's right member of the jazz messengers oh this is who is that oh bill billy pierce that's who is that's who is that's who you Billy Pierce. Bill Pierce. Yeah, yeah. Great saxophone. That was a really good band.

And I don't know, is that Charonet Moff? No, it's, I don't know who that is on Bays. But that was a great band. I mean, that was, you know, I actually was kind of, you know, that sent me on a deep dive back into the classic Art Blakey stuff. It was sort of a two-fold thing, Winnton and Brantford, that band, kind of hearing that. And then also Blue Notes kind of coming back out again,

seeing a lot of those recordings. That sort of pushed me all the way back. And some great arrangers, too. Like Bobby Watson. Bobby Watson, that's right. You know? And he was with the group, too. I guess Bramfer might have replaced him or whatever.

Yeah. Bobby Watson, yeah. Tons of, I mean, if you just go through the list of all the players that have been on there, I mean, most of them are incredibly famous at this point, but some of them aren't, are less famous Carlos Garnett. No, not familiar with this word. Not familiar with him? No.

No. No. Okay. Anyway. All right. Yeah, there's a ton of folks. And hopefully, John, the ones we've mentioned are all, worth checking out and have their own

albums and their own music and you know it's funny it's like I think the folks that come out of that band they have that certain mentality when they make an album or when they make more music as the leader yeah that they they have that I don't know it has a has a Blakey alum feel

right you know what I'm saying um Clifford Brown Lou Donaldson now we're going back to the very beginnings of Art Blakey you know with the live what was that I've heard of those guys with the I was going to say it's not Lou Donaldson with the high voice, the guy who was introducing him on that record. Oh, yeah, at the, where is it live?

It's Birdland. Is it, no, is it Berlin? Yeah, I think so. Live at Birdland? Live at the Birdland. Yeah, of course. It might be, yeah. Man, that's some classic, you know, and that was, I think, was already called Jazz

Messengers then. That was definitely our, it was under Arr-Lakey. So there's a great story about this in the new Blue Note movie, actually, where Blakey paid that announcer to say Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. It wasn't Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Really? Really? Yeah.

So we're getting into, like, fun fact. Fun fact. Yeah. Art Blakey basically bribed to have his name up front and then from there on that. And that was like early 50s. So you got, actually, what was that? Yeah, 54 release. Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson, Horse Silver.

That's right. I actually learned some of the solvers of, that was my first horse silver solos that I learned was from that record, that volume one. That's great. Some classic Clifford Brown, if you haven't heard that, that's a really fun one. And Curley Russell on bass, of course. But that's some wonderful. I mean, wow, what a great thing that Lou Donaldson is. still with us, still doing his thing.

Well, I actually saw him recently, and he's like, you know, I'm in retirement, but I'm thinking about coming out because they keep giving me honors, so I'll come out if they honor me. Like, he's, like, that's literally what he's told me. You have one of the better Lou Donaldson's, and there's a lot of Lou Donaldson impressions. Come on now. Man, we could do a whole week on the Jazz Messengers. There's been so much, I mean, there's so much material to cover that we could do list on all the different errors.

We've only got like 300 episodes this year ahead of us, so how will we ever fit that in? Okay, let's keep, let's keep rolling here. Well, thanks for listening. Thanks, John. I hope we answered your question somewhat in a roundabout way. Yeah. And, you know, you can always go to you'll hear it.com to ask a question. You can go to YouTube.

I won't be there, but Peter will be there. Troll him, troll him. Answering questions on YouTube. But go to you'll hearth.com to leave us a voicemail, a speakpipe. You can buy some you'll hear it swag. Yep. You can leave us a seven-star review. Yep.

And anything else? I think that's it. So you'll hear it.