About

Just Coolin’: a never-before-released studio album by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers that was recorded on March 8, 1959 in Rudy Van Gelder’s living room studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. The session featured a short-lived line-up of The Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey, trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt. The album features two previously unissued compositions including Timmons’ tune “Quick Trick”.

The session for Just Coolin’ finds The Jazz Messengers’ saxophone chair in transition. The band had last recorded in October 1958 when they cemented their place in jazz history with the classic album Moanin’ featuring Benny Golson on tenor saxophone. By July 1959, Blakey had recruited tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter who would remain a fixture of the band until 1964.

The interim saw the return of Mobley, who was a charter member of The Jazz Messengers when the band first formed in 1954 and appeared on their debut recording The Jazz Messengers At The Café Bohemia in 1955. Mobley also filled an important role as the band’s resident composer. In fact, three of the six tracks on Just Coolin’ were written by Mobley: “Hipsippy Blues,” “M&M,” and “Just Coolin’.”

However, five weeks after the studio session Blue Note founder and producer Alfred Lion decided to record the band again at the legendary club Birdland in New York City on April 15, 1959, capturing an assured live recording that included four of the six titles that had been recorded in March. The Birdland sessions ended up superseding the studio date when Lion instead released the two-volume live album Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers At The Jazz Corner Of The World later that year. — (via Label)

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man or woman in possession of a good quantity of Art Blakey albums, must be in want of a lot more. Previously unreleased albums are particularly enticing. So do not be fooled by the Reid Miles-inspired cover of Just Coolin': the disc is previously unissued. It presents Blakey in his pomp fronting a dream-team Jazz Messengers lineup.

It is not known why Lion decided to shelve the session, but the likely reason is that five weeks later he recorded the same lineup live at New York's Birdland for what became the two-volume set At The Jazz Corner Of The World, which includes four of the six tunes that make up Just Coolin'. By the time the Messengers got to Birdland, the material — all of it new to the band — was more familiar to the musicians and the ensemble passages were played with more precision. Lion, always a stickler for such exactitude, probably decided to release the live album rather the studio session for that reason.

Just Coolin's occasional borderline-ragged theme statement, however, pales into insignificance when measured alongside the passion with which the players approach the material. The album features Blakey with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymie Merritt. Three of the tunes are Mobley originals: "Hipsippy Blues," "M&M" and "Just Coolin,'" which were subsequently recorded at Birdland along with Bernice Petkere's "Close Your Eyes." The previously unissued pieces are "Jimerick" (composer unknown) and Timmons' "Quick Trick."

Sixty-one years after it was recorded, Just Coolin' affirms another truth deserving of universal acknowledgement: hard bop of this quality is immortal. — (via All About Jazz)

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Now here's what you call an archival gold nugget!

A rediscovered studio recording by the short-lived spring 1959 edition of Blakey's Messengers, which unlike other recent vault-retrievals, is a genuine ‘album’ rather than a sewn-together set of off-cuts.

Part of the reason for its long-deferred release was that of the six pieces it comprises four were rerecorded by Blue Note live at Birdland a month later for the two LP volumes of At The Jazz Corner of The World. Fear not though: these are not pallid studio warmups – this is a working band positively on fire.

Sandwiched between the Benny Golson/Moanin' edition of the group and its equally notable successor with Wayne Shorter in the tenor chair, this all-but-forgotten Messengers line-up might just be the apotheosis of hard bop. Morgan and Mobley (the ‘M & M’ commemorated in one track title) were a front-line made for each other, one puckish and bubbling, the other slyly lyrical. Add what has to be one of Blakey's pushiest rhythm teams with Timmons and Merritt and you have the makings of a classic.

And that's exactly what Just Coolin' is: that much-touted thing – a truly ‘classic’ Blue Note. There are simply too many high spots to capture here, but right from the soulful ‘Hipsippy Blues’ which opens the disc (a backbeated minor blues that is a virtual definition of the labels ‘house’ style), through the groovy ‘Close Your Eyes’ and the way-up-there burning of ‘Jimerick’ you have all the elements that made Blakey and Blue Note's association so apposite. Short at around 39 minutes, this is a set with absolutely no filler, but that's the point: this killer is the very essence of hard bop. An album that deserves all the stars you can throw at it. — (via Jazz Wise)

Vinyl Tracklist
A1 Hipsippy Blues
A2 Close your Eyes
A3 Jimerick
B1 Quick Trick
B2 M+M
B3 Just Coolin’

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Label: Blue Note
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
Released: 2020 / Originally recorded: 1959
Genre: Jazz
Style: Hard Bop

File under: Blue Note
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