The Jazz Messengers News

"The Lounge Lizards and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in a Japanese brothel," is how acclaimed U.K. DJ and record-label owner Gilles Peterson has described funky jazz sextuplet Soil & "Pimp" Sessions.

Though devoutly worshipped by fans, jazz drummers don't often lead groups; the late Art Blakey 's long-running Jazz Messengers are a prominent, if rare, exception.

Be-bop and straight-ahead jazz, West Coast style, come to the First Congregational/Christ United Methodist Church next weekend.

"Art Tatum: Celebrating 100 years of Toledo's Jazz Great" will be held from 7 to 11 p.m. Oct.

Whether you call it hard bop or soul jazz, small bands like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and the Cannonball Adderley and Horace Silver quintets made some of the era's best-loved music, combining tight ensembles with emotional solos that produced a bluesy, church-driven sound.

Steve Giordano is a Philadelphia jazz guitarist in great company. He has lived, learned, loved and played in the most evolutionary age of creative music in America.

The much-recorded Cedar Walton is an old-school Ronnie Scott's favourite. The pianist on John Coltrane's seminal 1959 album Giant Steps , he also spent three years playing and arranging for drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers during the band's creative purple patch in the early 1960s.

There's a thickness to the sound of this 1956 Kenny Dorham set as reissued by Music Matters on two 45-rpm records-a density that blows from the speakers and settles in the room like smoke.

The pianist Cedar Walton, 75, is a bridge between the old and the new in jazz, a former sideman who recorded on John Coltrane 's "Giant Steps" as well as with Etta James and with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, all while rolling out his own muscular catalog.

Jazz is a story of continuity, that of one generation passing on its knowledge to the next.

When it comes to artists like drummer Art Blakey, whose catalog is enormous, it can be easy to overlook a classic.

Cedar Walton, who'll be at the jazz festival Saturday, might be the quintessential jazz accompanist and sideman.

Cedar Walton, who'll be at the jazz festival Saturday, might be the quintessential jazz accompanist and sideman.

Riverbank State Park, in association with Brownstone Entertainment Complex, LLC, for our fifth consecutive year are pleased to present: 'Jammin' On The Hudson". On Sunday August 9th we Present; The Co-operation. This Band is the brain-storm of its Bassist/Leader, who left working with Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers to form this band.

July 27, 2009, 7:12 AM / We all have our Sunday rituals - sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee, peeling through the paper like it's a massive onion, rereading your fave Danielle Steel novel for, like, the millionth time.

If the expression "renaissance musician" existed in the dictionary, it would probably show a picture of saxophonist Roy Nathanson.

Everything's Coming Up Weeds, the 50th release from the Cellar Live stable, is a stellar recording featuring an extraordinary quintet.

Cedar Walton 's three-year association with The Jazz Messengers is what drew me to his set at Harro East last night.

Sat., June 13, 7 & 10:30pm. $25 . Philadelphia Clef Club, 738 S. Broad St. 215.893.9912 www.clefclub.org Search for bassist Charles Fambrough on YouTube and you'll find him with Art Blakey in 1982, holding it down behind Wynton and Branford Marsalis, both fresh-faced and in their early 20s.

Diablo Business Women, "Nine Killer Steps to Propel Your Business" - 5:45-8:30 p.m. June 11.