Revisit perhaps the most iconic Jazz Messengers album this week as we mark what would have been Art Blakey's 100th birthday. The legendary drummer fronted many iconic Messengers line-ups, but their ...

Legendary Nigerian drummer Tony Allen is an Afrobeat pioneer best known for his tenure as musical director for Fela Kuti. American jazz was an early influence, and he pays tribute to hard bop icon ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Art Blakey’s high-energy amalgam of splashed cymbals and skin-tight press rolls, side-drum rumbles and ...

This previously unreleased studio album by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers should be Mannah from heaven for lovers of hard yet curiously easeful hard bop. The six-track album was recorded on 8 March, ...

MURRAY HORWITZ, American Film Institute: Well, the word is overused and it's definition has expanded nowadays, but for many of us, that sound defines the word "funky." Tell us, A.B. Spellman, what ...

There is a saying in the opera world which, though innocuous on the face of it, damns a work before the overture has begun let alone after the fat lady sings. The saying, beloved of breathless ...