Art Blakey

The drummer and band leader Art Blakey was one of the most influential figures in jazz. He founded The Jazz Messengers in the late 1940s and recorded dozens of albums with a constantly changing group of “Messengers” performing and touring with the group through the end of the 1980s.  

As a band leader he was a successful talent scout. Like no other band leader of the 20th century, he hired and nurtured some of the most talented jazz musicians of the time, providing opportunities for several generations of jazz musicians. Many Messenger alumni went on to become jazz stars in their own right. These included Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Branford Marsalis, Kenny Garrett and Javon Jackson, and the pianists Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, Cedar Walton, John Hicks, James Williams, Mulgrew Miller and Bennie Green.

Max Roach commenting on Art’s death in the New York Times said “Art was an original… He's the only drummer whose time I recognize immediately. And his signature style was amazing; we used to call him 'Thunder.' Art was perhaps the best at maintaining independence with all four limbs. He was doing it before anybody was.”

Blakey was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1981), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 1998 and 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1991  

Art Blakey played Gretsch drums from 1954 through to 1966. He started on a Gretsch Broadkaster and in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s played Gretsch Round Badge (early USA Custom). He appeared on the legendary “Gretsch Drum Night at Birdland” record.