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Art Blakey is self-taught on drums and as much for playing the percussion instrument he is known as band leader. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers is easily among the best known Jazz ensembles through the last 5 decades of the 20th century. It is inappropriate to ask who was playing in the Jazz Messengers. Better one can ask, who did NOT play in the Jazz Messengers. From the very beginning the group can be considered hard bop ambassadors of the first order. A host of talent has emerged through the ranks of the Jazz Messengers. Before the group was founded, Blakey performed with his own quintet which featured Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Lou Donaldson, and Curley Russell. The first Jazz Messengers included Hank Mobley (tenor sax) and Kenny Dorham (trumpet), but ever since its formation the band has known a sequence of personnel changes. Since 1954 the likes of Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Branford and Wynton Marsalis were members at one stage or another. The band continued until well into the eighties, Blakey died in 1990.
