Search - Art Blakey :: Moanin

Can't beat it for the price

llooc | CT, USA | 07/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Leaving a five star review to counterbalance the 1 star review that the blockhead below left. (Hey, dummkopf, if you err in reviewing you can simply send a request to Amazon that they remove your review.)



A good find for the Blakey aficionado, as I believe this particular incarnation of the Jazz Messengers only released one other record. Billy Harper tears it up nicely on "Blues for Eros", and Bill Hardman puts on his usual quality performance.



It's tough to find a Blakey album that's not worth getting. This 1968 session certainly isn't the first place I'd stop and check out in the Blakey discography. But for a few dollars you get 56 minutes of very good hard bop. I see some other copies here selling for more than that, but if you look around you can find it cheaper. (I got mine for $4 new at Tower several years ago.)"

No pretenders: a watershed point for truly bad Bu birds.

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 07/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Heresy, I know, but I've come to treasure this on-location recording and rare edition of a Blakey ensemble more than the best-selling, quasi-commercial, packaged-funk "Moanin'" session on Blue Note with Morgan, Golson, and Timmons. No trumpet player contributed more to a Blakey ensemble than Bill Hardman--in the mid-'50's, again in the late '60's, and again throughout the '70's. A slightly built, unassuming if not self-effacing person and unpretentious, all-business musician, Bill plays the title song like there's no tomorrow while eschewing the dramatic poses of a Lee Morgan; he may lack the fat, buttery sound of Freddie Hubbard, but his cadenza at the end of "Blue Moon" and his pyrotechnical solo on "Slide's Delight" are on a level with only one other Blakey trumpet star: Clifford Brown. On several occasions I saw Bill appear at "all-star" trumpet invitationals and literally blow the competition away. So proficient was he that Bu could stop the band while Hardman played a half dozen choruses unaccompanied (look for the Italian LP release, "Art's Break").



Ronnie Matthews and Billy Harper help insure that this session stays cooking at maximum heat without flaming out. Count yourself fortunate if you've arrived this deep in the Blakey catalog, the place where the real music people are separated from the hipster pretenders. Essentially the same personnel can be heard on the recently released "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Live at Slug's Saloon," but the program, audio quality, and playing all fall short of the standard captured on this humble little Laserlight disk. Grab it before it goes out of print; the other one will always be there in yet another remastered, unimproved edition."

Excellent

Samuel Chell | 12/03/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Blakey used a rotating line-up for his Jazz Messengers band, and this overlooked crew produced a soul-jazz classic with "Moanin'." Benny Golson wrote and arranged most of the songs. Check out Blakey's tour de force in the "Drum Movement Suite.""