RHJB Meetup

2/23/21
Agenda
1. The hang.
2. Black History Month: Celebrating Art Blakey
3. Open mic
4. Moving toward live rehearsals next week.
Art Blakey: His impact on the swing revival
● Similar to figures like Sylvia Sykes and Jonathan Bixby in
the Lindy community, Art Blakey and his ilk were the
torchbearers that carried jazz through the commercial and
stylistic minefields of the 1970s and 80s.
● Without Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, there would
be no Wynton Marsalis and the Young Lions. Without the
Young Lions, traditional jazz may have never returned.
● Admittedly, traditional jazz was still performed and had its
own mini revivals.
● However, without the Art Blakey and his legacy, it’s unlikely
Trad Jazz would have gained the momentum to support the
Lindy Hop revival.
Art Blakey: Brief Bio
● B. 1919 - D. 1990
● As an “orphan,” he starting playing piano professionally at 13.
● Started playing with Mary Lou Williams, Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine.
● Switched to drums and continued to work with Monk, Dizzy, Bird.
● Considered one of the inventors of Bebop drumming.
● Formed the Jazz Messengers, the quintessential Hard Bop group, in the 1950s with
Horace Silver.
● Messengers included Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson,
Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, Curtis
Fuller, Chuck Mangione, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Cedar Walton, Woody Shaw,
Terence Blanchard, and Wynton Marsalis.
● The Jazz Messengers was known as the University of Art Blakey
The Jazz Landscape post WWII
● Musicians had fewer opportunities as bands got
small and dance gigs disappeared.
● Universities were teaching jazz, and a new crop of
white musicians were taking up jazz.
● R&B and Rock and Roll were influencing jazz
musicians (e.g., Miles).
● Young musicians with talent found a home with Art
Blakey.
"I'm gonna stay with the youngsters. When these
get too old I'll get some younger ones. Keeps the
mind active."
The Jazz Messengers
● Hard Bop was both a reaction to Bebop and Cool Jazz.
● Cool Jazz was a movement championed by Miles Davis to slow down
harmonic motion of Bebop so improvisers could better explore a range of
emotion and melodic modes.
● Hard Bop marked a return to blues and gospel (e.g., “The Preacher”), while
incorporating the funky rhythms of pop R&B music and Blakey’s heavy shuffle
(e.g., Moanin’ & the Chess Players).
Art Blakey: The 1970s and 1980s
● Jazz Fusion was dominating the landscape in the 1970s (e.g.,
Return to Forever & Bitches Brew).
● Smooth Jazz was taking over the airwaves in the 1980s (e.g.,
Spyro Gyra & Kenny G).
● In terms of record sales and airplay, jazz was dying on the
vine.
● In 1979 Blakey assembled an 11-piece "big band," including
two sets of brothers: Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Robin
and Kevin Eubanks.
● Terence Blanchard joined to replace Wynton when he formed
his own band.
● Nevertheless, the neoclassical aesthetic championed by
Blakey persisted with Wynton, his “Young Lions,” and other Cindy Blackman, shortly after Blakey's
neoclassicists. death, "When jazz was in danger of dying
● Revivalists were not welcomed by fusion and free jazz artists. out [during the 1970s], there was still a
Miles Davis called it "warmed over turkey." scene. Art kept it going."
Art Blakey: Legacy
● The Young Lions, Neo-boppers, Neoclassicists, Re-Boppers, or Wyntonites rejected the
“laziness” of West Coast Cool and the “noise” of fusion and free jazz.
● Meanwhile:
○ As early as the 1980s, the seeds of Lindy Hop were planted with the Rhythm Hotshots.
○ Margaret Batiuchok writes her NYU Masters Thesis in 1988.
○ NYC (e.g., NY Swing Dance Society) and LA (Sylvia and Jonathan at Bobby McGee’s) still had the remnants of swing
dancing.
○ The rockabilly scene in CA, the southwest harbored many people that would start dancing Lindy Hop in the early 1990s
(e.g., hinted at in Swingers).
● Wynton leads Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which yielded a smaller influence back then but
served to consolidate members of the movement under Wynton.
● 1992, JALC releases Portraits by Ellington
● All these influences come together to create a mutually supporting scene for musicians and a
new crop of dancers.
Art Blakey: The stories
● Blakey was forced at gunpoint to move from piano to drums by a club owner to allow
Erroll Garner to take over on piano.
● While playing in Henderson's band, Blakey was subjected to an unprovoked attack
by a white Georgia police officer which necessitated a steel plate being inserted into
his head.
● Geoffrey Keezer, claimed that “He was selectively deaf. He'd go deaf when you
asked him about money, but if it was real quiet and you talked to him one-on-one,
then he could hear you just fine."
● He would often tell you to show up at a certain time with your gear, and you’d be on
a play to Japan or Germany without warning.
● Billy Eckstine set Art Blakey’s drums on fire to force him to buy a new kit.
Further reading...

https://wyntonmarsalis.org/news/entry/the-young-lions-roar-wynton-marsalis-lincol
n-center-jazz-orchestra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Blakey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jazz_Messengers

https://fb.watch/3PMLLJUawv/

https://youtu.be/8CrfwdyjiEg
Rehearsing together
● Rehearsal Live Share is a new app that allows immediate playback of live
performance
○ Everyone performs to a click track
○ No one can hear each other
○ The app immediately glues all the parts together
○ The playback file is available immediately
● You get immediate feedback without editing
● You can still see each other
● Free for participants, but $99/year for the host
● 14-day(?) trial period
● https://www.rehearsalliveshare.com/