Īfter the Eckstine band broke up, Blakey states that he traveled to Africa for a time: "In 1947, after the Eckstine band broke up, we-took a trip to Africa. Through this band, Blakey became associated with the bebop movement, along with his fellow band members Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Sarah Vaughan among others. : 11–12 įrom 1944 to 1947, Blakey worked with Billy Eckstine's big band. He led his own band at the Tic Toc Club in Boston for a short time. These injuries caused him to be declared unfit for service in World War II. : 10 (Some accounts have him joining Henderson as early as 1939.) 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. While sources differ on the timing, most agree that he traveled to New York with Williams in 1942 before joining Henderson a year later. : 8–10 įrom 1939 to 1944, Blakey played with fellow Pittsburgh native Mary Lou Williams and toured with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. : 6–8 The style Blakey assumed was "the aggressive swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc". : 6–8 : 1 The veracity of this story is called into question in the Gourse biography, as Blakey himself gives other accounts in addition to this one. An oft-quoted account of the event states that Blakey was forced at gunpoint to move from piano to drums by a club owner, to allow Erroll Garner to take over on piano. He switched from piano to drums at an uncertain date in the early 1930s. Career īy seventh grade, according to several sources, Blakey was playing music full-time and had begun to take on adult responsibilities, playing the piano to earn money and learning to be a band leader. : 2–3īlakey received some piano lessons at school but was also self-taught. The stories related by family and friends, and by Blakey himself, are contradictory as to how long he spent with the Parran family, but it is clear he spent some time with them growing up. According to Leslie Gourse's biography, the surrogate mother / family figure was Annie Parran and her husband Henry Parran Sr. īlakey was raised with his siblings by a family friend who became a surrogate mother. Blakey's uncle, Rubi Blakey, was a popular Pittsburgh singer, choral leader, and teacher who attended Fisk University. His biological father was Bertram Thomas Blakey, originally of Ozark, Alabama, whose family migrated northward to Pittsburgh sometime between 19. He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.īlakey was born on October 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, probably to a single mother who died shortly after his birth her name is often cited as Marie Roddicker, or Roddericker, although Blakey's own 1937 marriage license shows her maiden name to have been Jackson. Posthumously, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 19). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz calls the Jazz Messengers "the archetypal hard bop group of the late 50s." īlakey was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1981). The group was formed as a collective of contemporaries, but over the years the band became known as an incubator for young talent, including 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. In the mid-1950s, Horace Silver and Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers, a group that the drummer was associated with for the next 35 years. He then worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. īlakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s. $%1 51)-.Arthur Blakey (Octo– October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader.
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