Blue Note to release Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers long lost album “Just Coolin’”

Blue Note to release Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers long lost album “Just Coolin’”. The album was recorded on March 8, 1959, in Rudy Van Gelder’s living room studio. Just a few months after studio session to “Moanin’” Art Blakey’s classic hard-bop album.

Blue Note founder and producer Alfred Lion recorded the band again at Birdland in New York on April 15, 1959, just five weeks after the “Just Coolin’” studio session. Those live recordings ended up replacing the studio versions. Blue Note released them as the two-volume live album “At the Jazz Corner of the World” in the same year. “Just Coolin’” includes two previously unreleased compositions, including “Quick Trick”, which you can listen below.

Listen to Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers track “Quick Trick” from album “Just Coolin’”:

Previous Art Blakey’s albums for Blue Note, including “Moanin’”, were recorded by the third incarnations of The Jazz Messengers. Line up with drummer Art Blakey, trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt.

Golson left the band in 1959 after a European tour to be replaced, briefly, by Hank Mobley. Henry “Hank” Mobley was a founding member of the Jazz Messengers, who returned only for a short time.

Mobley did not accompany the band to a Canadian jazz festival in 1959; Lee Morgan encountered Wayne Shorter at the festival, who became a fixture of the band until 1964.

Listen to Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers track “Quick Trick” from the album “Just Coolin’”:

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers “Just Coolin’” tracklist:

Side A

1. Hipsippy Blues (Hank Mobley)
2. Close Your Eyes (Bernice Petkere)
3. Jimerick (unknown)

Side B

1. Quick Trick (Bobby Timmons)
2. M&M (Hank Mobley)
3. Just Coolin’ (Hank Mobley)

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