4. “Free for All,” Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, from Free for All (1964)

​During the 1940s, Art Blakey played drums in a number of popular groups, including the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and Billy Eckstine’s big band. Blakey was in demand as a hard-swinging timekeeper, favoring dance rhythms undergirded by hi-hat pedal stomping and locked-in, unwavering tempos.
 
His true importance, though, lay in his abilities as a bandleader. Beginning in 1955, he co-led a quintet that appeared on their Blue Note debut as Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers; by the time the group recorded a pair of live albums at the Café Bohemia that November, the name at the top of the bill was Blakey’s. Silver left the following year, but Blakey would continue to record under that moniker as the sole original band member for more than three decades, serving as a mentor for generations of players.
 
By the time of Free for All, Blakey had already gone through three band lineups. This fresh bunch of Messengers included young lions Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone and Freddie Hubbard on trumpet; their energy no doubt inspires Blakey’s aggressive attack and non-stop soloing here. Shorter wrote this tune; his composing and playing are the epitome of post-bop, a type of semi-traditional jazz that emphasizes original compositions, loose attitudes towards rhythm and song structure, and abstract-sounding approaches to soloing.