The Jazz Messengers

On Mosaic, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers show exactly why the band became a kind of graduate school for hard bop. This edition of the Messengers fields Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Cedar Walton at the piano, Jymie Merritt on bass, and Blakey himself driving the drums, a front line and rhythm section as elegant as they are explosive. The compositions are memorable without ever feeling formulaic, stitching blues, gospel shouts, and sophisticated harmony into something that feels both earthy and intricate. Solos blaze, but it’s the collective attack – the way the horns lock in, the way the rhythm section lifts every phrase – that makes Mosaic an essential document of Blakey’s academy in full flight.