(1919–90). American jazz drummer Art Blakey was noted for his brilliant playing and for the Jazz Messengers, a band that he led for 35 years. The sounds of his cymbals and drums were unique, and he played them with rare sensitivity. Many of the young musicians he trained in his bands went on to become major jazz figures themselves.
Blakey was born on October 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a teenager he performed first on piano, later on drums, in jazz clubs in the evenings while working in the steel mills by day. Beginning in 1939, as a drummer, he performed with several bands, most notably that of Billy Eckstine (1944–47). Among the artists he met and performed with during that period were Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, and Billie Holiday.
When Eckstine’s band broke up, Blakey traveled to Africa, a trip that led to his conversion to Islam and his adoption of the Muslim name Abdullah ibn Buhaina. Upon his return to the United States he was hired to play drums on several Blue Note Records recordings with jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. With Horace Silver, Blakey founded the Jazz Messengers (1954), toured Europe, and recorded a brilliant string of records for the Blue Note label between 1955 and 1961.
As a drummer Blakey accompanied soloists with lively accents, and he played solos with cross-rhythms and drum rolls that began as quiet tremblings and grew into frenzied explosions. His own playing and his aggressive bands, which played original songs composed by his musicians, were important developments of the hard bop tradition. He hired young musicians for his Jazz Messengers, and he gave them valuable experience as jazz performers. Over the years his groups included such notable jazz artists as Clifford Brown, Benny Golson, Johnny Griffin, Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, and Wynton Marsalis. Blakey died on October 16, 1990, in New York, New York.