Art Blakey & The New Jazzmen – Live in Paris ’65 – 180g Vinyl LP

2020 release

A truly powerhouse quintet! Art Blakey, Live in ’65 boasts an exceptional one-hour concert from Paris in 1965. This performance showcases one of the few undocumented Blakey bands, the New Jazzmen, featuring Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Jaki Byard on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, Nathan Davis on sax, and, of course, Blakey on drums. Freddie Hubbard’s incendiary playing on “Blue Moon” and the blistering 24-minute version of his own “Crisis” shows that he was one of the most innovative trumpeters in jazz history.

On this live session, the audiences seem to have been enthusiastic and appreciative. “Everywhere we’d go people would say, This is the best Jazz Messengers we’ve heard!”, according to Davis. “And because of the way Jaki would play and Reggie would go, it was like a semi-freedom thing – with Messengers heads, you know, but when we got to soloing…! And Blakey was ridin’ and floatin’ the time…but he would always be loose enough to follow, to keep it going. He’s one helluva musician.”

Recorded at Palais de la Mutualité, Paris, France, November 3, 1965.

Freddie Hubbard (Trumpet)

Nathan Davis (Tenor saxophone)

Jacki Byard (Piano)

Reggie Workman (Bass)

Art Blakey (Drums)

Side A The Hub (Freddie Hubbard) 16’44 Blue Moon (Rogers/Hart) 7’44

Side B Crisis (Freddie Hubbard) 24’46

Re-mastered from the original Master Tapes.

Limited edition 2000 copies.

180 gr vinyl pressed by Pallas in Germany. Deluxe high-gloss flipback album jacket.

Essay written by Brian Priestley.

Double insert using an original photo by JP Leloir from the concert. Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.