Down Beat : 08/20/1959
John A. Tynan : 2.5 stars

Well now… For the benefit of the esoteric market, this record must have something. But from this chair, there seems to be scant offering indeed. The entire affair is couched in percussive terms – skillfully executed, to be sure – which reduce the record’s potential appreciation market by about 90 percent. How many Africanesque chants can one stand?

Still, for drum solo fans, this disc will probably be the apotheosis of everything.

Onward, as Mort Sahl would say.

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Liner Notes by Joe Goldberg

Art Blakey at home is as far removed from the stereotype of the jazz musician as these LPs are from a Jazz Messengers session. The soundtrack from “Inn of the Sixth Happiness” was on the phonograph, and when the march passage came up, his daughter Sakeena, aged two, joined in enthusiastically on the vocal. “She knows that part,” Blakey said, pleased.

Trying to talk to Blakey is the world’s easiest job. Ask one question, sit back, and listen. Which is not to say that he monopolizes a conversation. Rather, one idea leads into the next with the same ease that he switches from traps to cymbals, and at the end of the evening, you find you have discussed twenty fascinating topics and met a warm, contented human being who also happens to be one of the best drummers in the world.

Why did he want to make a record like this – three jazz and seven Latin drummers – one far removed form the sort of thing that has made his reputation?

“Because it’s fun,” Blakey said. “You can express yourself. I’m often accused of being a virulent drummer, very loud, a man can’t express himself in front of me. That’s not true. If he’s a good musician, if he’s playing himself, playing his best, he’ll get his message across. A record like this, it’s very simple. And the simple things are the best. No intricate arrangements – use mallets here, use brushes there – you just get good men together, and tell them to play. It works out.”

It obviously did work out. Aside from two tunes that Ray Bryant prepared for the date, Swingin’ Kilts and Reflection, all the tunes and routines were worked out in the studio, in a session that lasted from eleven at night until five the next morning, producing two LPs. As we listened to the records, Blakey continually heard things that made him laugh with delight – never his own work – and asked to hear the passage again. Philly Joe’s vocal on The Feast, Sabú‘s cavalry-like entrance on Reflection, the exchanges between drummers on Kilts (the one tune on which the Latin rhythm is not present), the amazing support Blakey receives on Dinga, where he solos alone with the Latin section; Donald Byrd‘s solo on Reflection, surely one of his best, and above all, the constant interplay of rhythms.

“Rhythm,” Blakey said. “We’re very far behind in rhythm. We have to catch up. Over in Europe, they say to me, ‘Art, you were playing eleven against eight there.’ I didn’t know it, but I play the record, and they’re right, I was. They have Orgy in Rhythm all figured out like it was a symphonic score. Here in America, we don’t know about that. The young musicians are working so hard on harmony and melody that they leave rhythm behind. You ever notice how a band will play a tune that has a very complicated rhythm, but when it comes time for the solos, they go back into straight four? Why? Because they can’t play it, they aren’t rhythmically advanced enough. Only three men could do it, they’re our greatest musicians, and they’re great because they were so advanced rhythmically. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk.”

What did he intend to do about that situation?

“I don’t want to prove anything,” he said. “I just want to play.” Then he thought for a moment. “But people need to be educated about drums. They’re harder to listen to, because they’re not a melody instrument. People think it’s just a lot of noise. But you can tell a story on the drums. I spent three years in Africa, and over there they can get on the drums and tell you so-and-so just went by, and what he looked like, and what kind of clothes he was wearing. The message is there, if you can hear it. You just have to listen.”

You can hear Blakey’s message on every track of these LPs. He has a sound as distinctive as that of any great horn man, and even when all nine other drummers are working simultaneously, it is impossible to mistake Blakey’s entrance. His is the powerful, assured, no-nonsense statement, dominant, but, as he says, allowing the other musicians full freedom.

As the record played, he found himself imitating on the chair-arm a complex rhythm figure of Sabú. “Listen to that! He can really play! That’s American! That’s what we have to offer. I hear we’re sending ballet over to Russia. They’re the masters of ballet, and we’re sending them ballet. They don’t have jazz. We have jazz.” He pointed to the phonograph, “They would go for that.”

That lead him into a discussion of dancing. A group of New York college students had worked out modern dance routines to some Blakey records, and invited him to attend a rehearsal. “I thought I’d go over and see, since they were so nice. Those kids can dance! They really have something there. They know what the music’s all about. I’d like to do a Town Hall concert with them.”

As we talked about these and many other subjects, I found my enjoyment of the records, and my understanding of them, increasing. A musician is most often thought of as an extension of his instrument, as if, say, Art Blakey were permanently attached to a set of drums. But, obviously, this is not the case. Like anyone else, he lives, he travels, he meets new people, gets new ideas, discards old ones, and because he is Art Blakey, he tells it on the drums. Within the limitations of such an unusual format as this one, he has found many different stories to tell. Philly Joe’s own brand of Swahili-American, the choral group’s open harmonies on Aghano that suggest primitive folk song, the exciting Dinga (for me, the high point of an excellent set) that suggests the formal concerto grosso and is every bit as complex, without sounding formal or restrained for a moment. But the music is more than capable of speaking for itself, and you will undoubtedly find your own high points.

When Alfred Lion first told me about this release, I asked him why Blakey was interested in such a project. “If it’s rhythm,” he said, “Blakey’s interested. He’d sit down with Chinese drummers.” Art Blakey would probably be puzzled that something so natural and simple should have to be explained.