So among today’s birthdays is the great Art Blakey.(October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) In honor of his birthday, I listened to the 1965 release 
from Art & the Jazz Messengers, Indestructible. As I listened to the album, I kept thinking how great the trumpet was, after listening I discovered that the trumpet player was Lee Morgan and the saxophone player was Wayne Shorter. others playing on the album include: pianist Cedar Walton, Curtis Fuller on trombone, and bassist Reggie Workman. Thom Jurek at AllMusic writes this about the album:
….Indestructible is a hard-blowing blues ‘n’ bop date with Shorter taking his own solos to the outside a bit, and with Blakey allowing some of Fuller’s longer, suite-like modal compositional work into the mix as well (“The Egyptian” and “Sortie”). There are plenty of hard swinging grooves– an off-Latin funk à la Morgan’s “Calling Miss Kadija,” Shorter’s killer “Mr. Jin,” and Walton’s ballad-cum-post-bop sprint “When Love Is New” — and the Blakey drive is in full effect, making this album comes closest in feel to the Moanin’ sessions with Bobby Timmons. Here the balance of soul groove and innovative tough bop are about equal. Morgan lends great intensity to this date by being such a perfect foil for Shorter, and their trading of fours and eights in “Sortie” is one of the disc’s many high points….Full Review
I actually picked this album because the album was listed as a Rudy Van Gelder Edition meaning that the engineer on the Alfred Lion produced album was Rudy Van Gelder. The album was recorded April 24 and May 15, 1964 at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ As I listened to the album, I was surprised at how fairly subdued Blakey’s drumming was on the album. I had the album on Spotify as I was doing some things around the house this morning and after the album was over the next album that came on was an album released in 2006 Live! At Slug’s N.Y.C. Now if you want to hear some Art Blakey drumming, give this one a listen!! The album only has four tracks and lasts only forty minutes but it’s a good forty minutes of music, almost thirteen plus minutes of which is the opening track “New World”!
So Happy Birthday, Mr Blakey where ever your gigging tonight!! If you want to read more here’s the link to my post from last year!
Here’s a 1965 performance of the track “The Egyptian” from the album featuring: Lee Morgan – trumpet, John Gilmore – tenor sax, John Hicks – piano, Victor Sproles – bass, and Art Blakey – drums. BBC Jazz
