Moanin’

The Jazz Messengers: Benny Golson (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Bobby Timmons (piano), Jymie Merritt (bass) and Art Blakey (drums). From the album Moanin’ (1959).

This is an essential album in the hard bop style because of Blakey’s drive and his combination of old-fashioned blues and gospel with modern jazz. It contains some of the best music Blakey ever recorded in the studio. The Jazz Messengers had already changed it’s members several times and the only one left of the founders of the group was him.

He was distinguished by his aggressive way of playing the drums, the use of polyrhythmia, the musical interaction with his soloists and his personality. In addition, he thought that jazz was underestimated in North America and wanted to increase its audience. As a leader, he gave his soloists ample space and encouraged them to contribute with compositions and arrangements.

The theme is a brief melody mixed with blues in which Timmons uses call and response technique of with the piano on the one hand, and the saxophone and trumpet on the other. Lee Morgan arrives with strenght using in his solo blues elements, filigreeing with the trumpet and continually changing its melodic line. Then Golson comes in calmer, his phrases are continuous and coherent, but as he goes along the solo becomes more turbulent. Then Timmons appears with a lot of blues in his discourse and dragging all the keys on the piano. Now it’s Merritt turn, doing a smooth solo and measuring each of the notes, and finally comes the re-exposure of the theme.