Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin’: Blue Note Essential Series (Vinyl LP) * * *

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Moanin’ Reissued for the Blue Note Essential Series on LP: Mastered from Hi-Resolution Digital Masters.

More than any other album in the canon of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, 1958’s Moanin’—featuring the great drummer with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt—was the perfect crystallization of the band’s bluesy, soulful sound, and it still stands today as perhaps the most quintessential hard bop recording of all-time. Originally self-titled, the album was later renamed Moanin’ due to the popularity of Timmons’ unforgettable opening track. The album also introduced several indelible Golson compositions that would become standards of the jazz songbook including “Along Came Betty” and “Blues March.”

Blue Note Essential titles are mastered from hi-resolution digital masters on 140 gram vinyl.