Moanin'

A drummer’s album need not make every composition a route towards an extended drum solo. Moanin’ moves through Bobby Timmons’s opening piece, four Benny Golson compositions and a concluding standard. Art Blakey’s force emerges from their differing designs: blues feeling, a marching entrance and a three-part suite alter the relationship between percussion and the horns. If the famous first track is already familiar, the fourth provides a particularly useful next step.

This 1958 Jazz Messengers lineup pairs Blakey with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Golson, pianist Timmons and bassist Jymie Merritt. Originally issued under the band’s name, the album became known by its popular opening track. The selected six-song programme continues through Are You Real, Along Came Betty, The Drum Thunder Suite, Blues March and Come Rain or Come Shine. It excludes conversation and alternate takes found on expanded versions, preserving the route from the opening theme to the closing standard.

Leadership and composition

Timmons wrote the title track; Golson supplied the four compositions in the middle. The drummer’s prominent billing does not make him the writer of everything. Separating composition from performance leadership turns personnel information into something more useful than a list of names. Different material is placed in the hands of the same five musicians, whose roles can be considered together.

Three parts for the drummer

Golson’s Drum Thunder Suite was written for Blakey. Its mallet-driven opening, Latin-inflected middle and final melodic section provide a map that prevents the piece from becoming one undifferentiated percussion display. The horns participate in its progress rather than merely decorating from outside. Blues March follows with another kind of drum entrance, making the same instrument a gateway to a different form.

A borrowed song to finish

Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s Come Rain or Come Shine closes the programme. After the original compositions, an established song gives the band another setting for its identity. A standard is not a requirement to perform the same way as everyone else: it is repertoire that musicians repeatedly return to. Comparing originals and borrowed material makes hard bop more concrete as a set of musical choices.