Billboard : 12/23/1957
Special Merit Jazz Album

One of the best Messenger sets to hit the market in quite some time. Material treated is substantial, emotionally turned, but not in the frantic groove essayed on other recent etchings by group. Solos by tenorist Johnny Griffin and pianist Junior Mance are uniformly excellent; the rhythm is sure and well-shaded, relating especially well to the soloists. If shown to modern buyer, this hard swinging package should do well, for it is one of the better albums of its kind.

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American Record Guide
Martin Williams : April, 1958

Drummer Art Blakey has led groups of “Messengers” for years but the most important was the recent one in which the creativity of pianist-composer Horace Silver shone (their best record is under Silver’s name, Blue Note BLP-1518). One might describe their work as the modern counterpart of the blues-jump band, with the limitations in range that such a statement implies, but the spirit with which they reasserted certain basic things about jazz was and is extremely important. Since that group disbanded Blakey has led one whose records are full of technical lapses and on which Blakey seemed to be trying to prove that the way to inspire is to coerce. This record shows the musicianship catching up with the intentions. Trumpeter Bill Hardman, who has sometimes seemed to fluff almost as many notes as he played, shows himself a real musician. Pianist Junior Mance may have trouble with time (For Minors Only) but he is adapting his “funk” to the new note of lyricism heard in this recital. Johnny Griffin, in many ways the best reed man Blakey has ever had, is making a firm place for himself as a virtuoso tenor saxist, but the joyous wit he can project is not so evident here. Blakey’s playing settles into a half swinging accompaniment, half inspirational interplay, tempos and dynamics relax a bit, internal battles settle into a kind of co-operation.

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High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : February, 1958

After turning out a series of discs which showed them as a blatant, sloppy, hard-muscled but unimaginative group, Blakey’s Jazz Messengers have done a complete turnabout on their Bethlehem disc. Here their playing is notably unfurious, clean, and marked by a welcome feeling for variety and shading. The addition of Junior Mance, an imaginative pianist, helps immensely. Tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, another relative new-comer, brightens every selection with his controlled virtuosity. Blakey, seemingly relaxed by the knowledge that he no longer has to carry his soloists all the time, drums with his usual muscularity and an unwonted sensitivity.

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Metronome
Jack Maher : March, 1958
This is a review of both Jubilee – JLP 1049 and Bethlehem – BCP 6023

In the album liner of Cu-Bop!, written by Nat Hentoff, Art Blakey is quoted as saying, “… When we’re on the stand, and we see that there are people in the audience who aren’t patting their feet and who aren’t nodding their heads to our music, we know we’re doing something wrong. Because when we do get our message across, those heads and feet do move.”

Since the Messengers prime purpose is to transmit a rhythmic message, they must be judged on the effectiveness of that transmission.

Every one on this date is concentratedly making rhythm, not only Blakey, DeBrest and Sabu, but every one. It’s part of the bop fashion to play a highly rhythmic, and at times, non-lyric line. This the respective Messengers do.

Bill Hardman and Dockery are the best at it, with Hardman sounding the best he ever has on records and Dockery patently fluid. One reason we feel that all this has taken place, is that the tempos are not the usual Messenger grinders.

CODA: The message makes sense to some, if you like the limitations of ultra-rhythm.

The second album coupled with the one above, make some of the best Jazz Messenger sides in recent time. There’s a predisposition on this date towards a more widespread concept of material. Minors Only, Right Down Front and Late Spring, seem to develop other attitudes than the raw, biting voraciousness that usually accosts the listener. Again like the above album, there’s good multi-noted, rhythmic blowing here by Bill Hardman and by Griffin and Mance.

CODA: Good Message as was stated above, for the same reasons.

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Miami News (Miami, FL)
William G. Moeser : 01/26/1958

The use of the word “solid” generically, in speaking of all jazz, certainly has been overworked, but for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers it is about the only adjective that truly fits the “Hard Drive” of their latest Bethlehem album (BCP-6023). Under the lash of Blakey’s sizzling beat the Messengers never relax. These are certainly no soporific sounds.

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San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, CA)
Jim Angelo : 02/08/1958

Proponents of what has been termed the “hard bop” school are Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers whose latest musical missive is appropriately titled Hard Drive (Bethlehem BCP-6023). With such solid citizens as Johnny Griffin on tenor, Bill Hardman on trumpet, and Blakey on drums, the hard-swinging quintet essays an intense attack on superb material—probably their best recorded effort to date. Best tracks: For Minors Only, Sakeena, For Miles and Miles, and Krafty.

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Down Beat : 04/03/1958
Don Gold : 3.5 stars

Blakey and his ferocious followers continue to pour forth messages. These two LPs are more in the adventurous tradition of the Blakey corps.

The Jubilee LP (Jubilee – JLP 1049) is less impressive than the Bethlehem release. The former is devoted to a vigorous exploitation of four tunes, with the help of Sabu on two conga drums. Occasionally, Sabu and Blakey manage to perpetuate some fascinating conversations, but the other soloists were not up to par the day this was recorded. Desert, a Charlie Shavers composition, is given a witty treatment and is the most significant portion of the LP but is not in itself wholly satisfying.

The Bethlehem release is more ordered than the Jubilee LP and benefits from solos of greater quality as well. The arrangements bear some significance, too, with Griffin’s Front being a delight, in the gospel-flavored preacher vein. Jimmy Heath,   Percy’s tenor-playing brother, contributed two arrangements of more than passing interest. Philadelphia pianist Leon Mitchell’s Spring is attractive, too.

Blakey, as ever, churns enormous rhythmic waves. Griffin is excellent, whipping out lines with fluency. Hardman, impaired by faulty intonation, manages to transmit some conceptual strength despite this flaw. Mance lends an able pair of hands.

The Bethlehem LP comes closer to Blakey and cohorts at their best. It has coherent solos, arrangements of value, and the inimitable spirit which is a part of Blakey. The Jubilee chapter is less successful. Characteristically, however, when the flesh is weak, the Blakey spirit does its best to be swingingly willing.

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Liner Notes by Nat Hentoff

Albums by the Jazz Messengers under the scalding direction of Art Blakey have not been exactly rarities in recent months. To this listener, who has also written the liners (or “program notes” as a friend of mine who does classical album annotations calls these presumably functional ruminations) for a few of the other Messenger missiles, this is one of the best, perhaps the best Messenger set since Horace Silver, Doug Watkins, Kenny Dorham and Hank Mobley left the firehouse.

Blakey agrees, and his logical explanation is: “the guys had been playing together longer by the time this was made. It takes time for them to get used to each other.” Blakey also intimated, and I hear his point fully, that the presence of pianist Junior Mance in this set provided a decided annealing propulsion to the unit. The Messengers’ regular pianist, who was unable to make this date, is an intent, growing musician but he is not yet equal in fire and professional assurance to Mance, who has been with Dinah Washington and more recently, the Adderley Brothers. As Mr. Blakey says, “Junior is very basic.”

It seems to me that by now, the biographical details of the Messengers’ careers have been sufficiently detailed and rephrased on the backs of several albums so that I would expend most of this space in relating a few observations by the leader and resident stoker of this bristling convoy. I rudely interrupted Art’s debate with influenza one recent morning to ask whether he agreed with or could define the “hard bop” classification that has been applied to his team.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Art began in an exasperated rasp. “All we do is try to play music, just basic music. Other people put names to it; I don’t put names to music. It’s just swinging. If we don’t swing, it isn’t jazz. That’s all. That’s all we’ve got is swinging. How are you going to swing if you don’t swing hard? How can you swing easy? Even if you play soft, you have to swing hard. Jazz is going to sell itself; it doesn’t need any names like ‘hard bop.'”

Art was then asked about a subject more congenial to him than the mirror-game of jazz semantics — his feelings concerning the progress of his sidemen. “Bill Hardman has grown in every sense in recent months. His chops are better; he’s more sure of himself; and always, he’s had that fire, more fire than most young trumpeters. That fire is what helps him along a lot. And his tone has improved, too. Johnny Griffin is a master. He knows. He’s been playing like this for years you know, but he just hasn’t given himself a chance by running home to Chicago all the time. He has to stay in the East awhile where he can keep up with the modern trends. I’m very fond of Johnny. He has it spiritually, morally, musically. He’s a wonderful person.”

I might add here the recommendation of a somewhat more disinterested observer, Martin Williams of The Saturday Review who delivers encomiums very sparingly. Wrote Williams: “J. Griffin (Ed. note: Williams doesn’t have much space), newest of the ‘hard’ tenor school, is a bracing breath of fresh air, with an original, sometimes humorous approach and an exciting flow of ideas.”

Blakey was candid about DeBrest, declaring that he felt the young (about 20) bassist has the potential but needs a stronger pianist in the band to propel him to improve faster. “I mean,” noted Blakey, “the way Horace Silver improved Doug Watkins.”

As is evident in the relative lack of repetition of repertoires in the Messengers’ recorded history, their book is a large and continually changing one. “We have to have a large book,” Blakey says, “because you can’t keep a band fresh if you play the same things every night. I remember with the other Messengers, we had a hit in The Preacher and so we had to play it every night and finally got sick of it. Then, too, new men bring new ideas into the band. The men choose or suggest the numbers. They bring them to me and we decide what goes out and what stays in.”

Coursing through all of the repertory of the Messengers is the feeling of the blues, even in those numbers that are not literally blues-structured. “The blues are the beginning of jazz,” Blakey states with no room in his tone for debate. “That’s where it comes from. Right from them funeral marches on up, there it is — the blues. The last thing Bird said to me was he wondered when the young people would come back to playing the blues. I tell you, if you can learn how to play the blues, you can play anything. But a lot of the young guys don’t want to play the blues. I don’t mean guys like Miles; I mean others. They don’t like to because they can’t. The blues are only twelve bars and they have so few changes that you have to know your instrument to get something out of it. It’s the same thing over and over again, so you have to think to make them come alive. And the guys hate to think; they’d rather just run changes on their horns. But look how far Basie has come on the blues. Twenty-five years, and his blues still sound good to me.”

As for the present program, For Miles and Miles and For Minors Only were written by Jimmy Heath, Percy’s brother and a jazz tenor who recorded with and was encouraged several years ago by Miles Davis. Jimmy has had his troubles in recent years, and Art’s opinion is: “Jimmy’s a great musician but he hasn’t given himself a chance yet; he doesn’t stay out on the street long enough.” I would like to underline the way the Messengers play For Minors Only, an illuminating contrast to their usual ferocious gait. Blakey affirms that there are no rules among the Messengers that all tempos must be voracious, and he avows that he is pleased with “the way they played this soft and nice and relaxed.”

Krafty and the gospel-sprung Right Down Front are by Johnny Griffin. Krafty, I’m told, is a tribute to the Messengers’ resourceful manager, Lee Kraft of whom Art Blakey said in a recent Down Beat interview: “Lee is the only one that’s fighting for us. He’s really in our corner.” Kraft, incidentally, manages several gospel artists as well. Right Down Front resulted from a visit Griffin paid to Blakey’s home and record collection. “We were listening to Mahalia and he likes that kind of music and this came out of it.”

Late Spring is by Leon Mitchell, a Philadelphia pianist, now in the army who has contributed some twenty numbers to the book, most of them not yet recorded because, sighs Blakey, “although they’re basic, they’re kind of hard and need a lot of rehearsing. What I like about him is that he writes for a little band so that it sounds like a big band.”

DEO-X and Sweet Sakeena are by Bill Hardman. Of the first he says: “In the introduction, the last four measures of the bridge, the interlude and the ending, it’s built on the whole tone scale, something you don’t find too often in jazz.” Sweet Sakeena is Art Blakey’s newest child, not yet a year old.

Composer Hardman also included his estimation of his front-line colleague, Johnny Griffin, a tribute underlined, Hardman indicates, by the fact “that I listen to him night after night. He’s always changing; his mind is always working; something else is always happening. He plays relaxed, the way musicians would like to play. He has execution, speed, all of that. He’s the most underrated tenor player around.”

About leader Blakey, Hardman concluded: “When he’s there, you don’t have to worry about having somebody behind you. Even if it was just him behind you with no piano or bass, everything would be pretty cool.”