Art Blakey

Listen to caravan and get where this cat is coming from. He's like the Sun Ra of straight ahead drummers. Anyway until you get a cat like Art Blakey you don't get it at all. Not to say we all don't maKE SENSE IN OUr OWN LITTLE WAYS. i TRADED IN MY gretsch CATAL;INAS FOR A  LUDWIG quESTLOVE BREAKBEAT KIT.today on a whim
18 " to a 16" bass drum. how small can they get. Still got my 20" tama royalstars for funk, may sell my 22" pacific fusion kit.
I've been playing straight ahead jazz with the young upstarts in my area and it's kickin my ass. listening to coltrane Blakey everything straight ahead for encouragement and ideas. It's exciting and challenging. It is making me study the old tunes and get them under my belt and they have originals everything. knocks out all the barriers and opens up wide open spaces. really basic swinging with all the tricks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IndZaGH7ses

I never saw Art play such a large set.

Forgive my ignorance here, but I am wondering what "tricks" Blakey employed throughout the piece. It seemed straight right and left hand unison with Art's normal press rolls throughout.

Jazz has never been my thing. The solos, so many of them, ... just don't do anything for me. Just flurries of notes and scales, but the trumpet solo by the guy in red was enjoyable. Was that Hubbard?

Nice setting for the concert, too.

When the soloist is playing over the changes there is a dead silence or a stop for a split second. Just to tighten things up and keep everybody on point. Just a marvelous player with serious arrangements in his work. He went to Nigeria for 2 or 3 weeks in the 50s I think, to get to heart of drumming. he stayed for 2 years! This is just helping me realise yes they are kind of simple swinging blues forms but what can be done with the structuring makes it alive. the way tunes have the drums written into them as fills and gaps to be expressive. There is alot there by learning these tunes, the chordal sequences/changes, phrasing all adds up to something really sophisticated yet, totally expansive and creative. Just raw emotion for my money. All the little nuances of each tune it's a lifetime of study. i am just having so much fun playing with these smokin teenagers. they go to music camps/school it's making them total monsters! We have a 15 yr old tenor player that is one the most interesting players in town. the guitarist is 19 and writing tunes that are complicated and groovy. i can tell you what a breath of fresh air!

Love it and that is some way cool Freddie footage.