The Jazz Messengers sparkle in First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings

Art Blakey’s high-energy amalgam of splashed cymbals and skin-tight press rolls, side-drum rumbles and bass-drum climaxes is a singular, much-recorded jazz voice. This two-CD album featuring a 1961 live recording captures that compulsive power towards the end of the late American’s first Japanese tour — his Jazz Messengers band had topped a magazine poll as being the jazz act people would most like to see. Treated with a respect rarely received at home, the spring in their step is palpable.

The repertoire is unusually tried-and-tested for a Messengers gig: “A Night in Tunisia” dates from the 1940s and band originals “Blues March” and “Moanin’” were already well-worn. But the band’s exuberance, the sparkle of Lee Morgan’s trumpet and the clarity of saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s oblique modernist lines render each tune interesting and fresh.

The personnel of the Messengers band chopped and changed in its early years, but this line-up had been stable for more than a year, which is reflected in the freedom of the solos, effortless rhythm section dynamics and subtle plays of mood. Blakey too is at his supple best, orchestrating the inner workings of his fine-tuned band with snicks of cymbal and raps of snare, and exploding centre stage to bring songs to a peak.

The album begins with Blakey’s drum thunder and cymbal play setting up the Charlie Parker blues “Now’s the Time” and continues with the gospel-tinged “Moanin’”, a classic Blakey theme. Here the writer, pianist Bobby Timmons, twins gospel with soul and Shorter comes at angles before taking wing.

The second disc opens with Timmons’ playful “Dat Dere” and includes a gorgeous reading of Monk’s “‘Round About Midnight” with trumpeter Morgan in dazzling form. The set ends with “A Night in Tunisia”, full-force solos delivered with focus and speed. Blakey thunders full tilt, his band become a percussion choir and then silence, save only for Morgan’s trumpet or Shorter’s out-there sax. The band’s seamless return ends the set.

★★★★☆

‘First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings’ is released by Blue Note