Albums I Love: “The Jazz Messengers – The Legacy of Art Blakey: Live At The Iridium”

I’ll start by saying that The Legacy of Art Blakey is my favorite album ever. Why do I love it? Take a listen, then read on.

(This review originally appeared on October 4, 2013 on a previous iteration of my blog.)

Background

I’ll start by saying that The Legacy of Art Blakey is my favorite album ever. Why do I love it? There are plenty of musical reasons, which I’ll cover below, but also some sentimental reasons:

• It’s the first jazz album I bought for myself
• It introduced me to my favorite pianist, Geoffrey Keezer
• It introduced me to my favorite jazz band, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
• It marks the day I decided I wanted to pursue jazz piano as a career
• The performers on the album represent several generations of jazz history, all working together to honor the music and the mentor that they loved

An introduction at Stanford Jazz Workshop

I bought this album at the age of 15, immediately after a lecture on Art Blakey at the Stanford Jazz Workshop during which I sat wide-eyed and open-mouthed, gawking at the sheer power of the mental connection that the faculty band members seemed to be sharing as they played on stage. It seemed as if the performers, led by bassist Gregory Ryan and pianist Victor Lin, existed within a localized telepathic field; I could see that energy field pulsing and breathing with every drum cue instantly responded to, every sudden drop in dynamics perfectly executed, every horn background line casually and effortlessly improvised on the spot. I wanted that energy, and I wanted it now. In fact, I knew right then that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in pursuit of that energy in performance.

To the Record Store!

I left the Workshop that day and went straight to the record store, convincing my mom to drop everything to take me there. I located the meager jazz section, skimmed until I found the even more paltry selection of Art Blakey albums, and thumbed through hoping to find one or two of the songs I had heard at lecture. Miraculously, a single copy of The Legacy of Art Blakey, with a cover featuring 6 friendly musicians of varying ages smiling and laughing at the camera, presented itself–and “One By One,” which I specifically remembered Ryan mentioning as one of the tunes the faculty had played, was the first track. I immediately snatched it up from the shelves, as if afraid that another shopper might want that exact album and take it first.

My heart quickly fell, however, when I realized that Art Blakey, leader and founding member of Jazz Messengers, was not on the album. In fact, he had died in 1990, 7 years before the album was recorded and 8 years before its release. A drummer named Lewis Nash was playing in his place. This was in fact a tribute album. Not wanting to miss out on a chance to hear the very subject of the lecture that inspired me, I grabbed another Messengers album with Blakey at the helm. It was the first album, however, that would have the more profound effect on me.

Group Dynamics

How do I explain why I love The Legacy of Art Blakey so much? I put that album in my CD player that day and heard story after story, recounted by six master storytellers, and yet no one said a word. But they were speaking, through their instruments. I again got the sense that they were operating in a personal telepathic field—not only were they telling stories, they were maintaining a steady flow of conversation, bantering and bouncing thoughts off of one another and more than occasionally coming into agreement with rhythmic figures or harmonic phrases that surely had been planned in advance.

The ideas were so fleeting, however, that I knew they could only have been improvised, and therefore these musicians had mastered the seemingly impossible skill of improvising the same idea together, of somehow anticipating their bandmates’ next moves and locking in with one another to produce wondrous moments. There were, of course, planned moments during the solos, in the form of background lines and rhythmic hits, and these the musicians executed flawlessly. It’s the spontaneous moments that I fell in love with, though, like pianist Geoffrey Keezer and Nash linking up during the final few triplet chords of Keezer’s solo on “One By One,” or linking up again to superimpose the rhythm of Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence” during a “B” section of bassist Peter Washington’s solo on the same track.

Great Performances

As cohesive as the six Jazz Messengers function as an ensemble, every musician on The Legacy of Art Blakey also demonstrates individual performance at the highest level.

Standout Star – Geoffrey Keezer

All five of the artists mentioned above are heavyweights on the jazz scene, and they play like it. To me, however, even among this group of amazing, legendary musicians, pianist Geoffrey Keezer stands out. Keezer’s comping is responsive and his chord voicings hip and varied. Not content just to play chords, he creates harmonic atmospheres, arpeggiating and crafting little melodies all over the keyboard, none of which overstep his role as accompanist even as they shine through in brief flashes. And for every chorus of comping, there’s a different rhythmic/harmonic motif that he develops, somehow perfectly complementing the soloist and inspiring Washington and Nash to join him for the ride. And then Keezer starts to solo, and I forget everyone else in the band.

Keezer’s solos are like listening to the finest radio dramas, but without any words to clutter the experience. He takes a theme and slowly crafts a narrative with it, creating tension and anticipation and continuing to the point that you’re on the edge of your seat, and then when he finally delivers a release the result is supremely satisfying. His left hand is an equal participant in the storytelling, not merely a responsive and subordinate element to the right hand, and at multiple points Keezer sets up a repetitive pattern in one hand while sculpting a melody with the other. I’d single out a tune or two to listen to, but to be honest all six of his solos are superlative. Here are some highlights:

Track by Track Piano Highlights

• “One By One”: Try listening to Keezer’s solo on this track and singing the melody in your head behind it, and you’ll hear that his concept of narrative extends way beyond the boundaries of the song form. It rocks my world. Plus the story he tells during this solo is everything that’s soulful and cool.
• “Ala Mode”: A bouncy and intensely rhythmic solo, with some really interesting figures that span across bar lines. There’s a wildly creative call-and-response segment around the 9-minute mark that gets me drumming along every time.
• “Whisper Not”: an poignant drama, reminiscent of a modern orchestra at work. I always hear different sections of musicians interacting when I listen to this solo. Check out the 7-minute mark.
• “Oh, By The Way”: Keezer transports me to an epic noir mystery, set somewhere like New York or Chicago with dark alleys and bustling thoroughfares and the occasional tender moment. At around 8’34” he does something that sounds like muting one of the strings but may be something else; regardless, he works the effect into the narrative like it were a normal element of the piano, repeatedly stepping away from it to make a comment elsewhere on the keyboard and then returning to it right afterwards to reemphasize the point.
• “Plexus”: Keezer takes the listener on a manic, sinister roller coaster ride, sounding at times like a drummer; like a horror-movie string section playing tremolos; and like two pianists at once.
• On “Blues March,” Keezer starts with space, a regular accompaniment pattern and brief melodic lines, then graduates to a ridiculously difficult-sounding ostinatto right-hand pattern that continues in the background for multiple choruses while the left hand develops its own mini-solo. Next, his hands spiral upwards together in a dizzying flurry of notes, culminating in several high chords and followed by a dual-hand melodic line that is pure blues and yet also hip and contemporary. He ends his solo soon after with his left hand in an accompaniment role but right in step with his right hand melodies. The trajectory of the solo is perfect.

I could go on, but you really should just listen for yourself. Geoff Keezer is the real deal and one of the main reasons why I’m a professional pianist now. He shines on this album. Read on for some more thoughts on the album format, personnel and liner notes.