" You don’t have to be a musician to understand jazz. All you have to do is be able to feel. If you pass through life without hearing this music, you’ve missed a great deal." ....Art Blakey "In 1955, Art Blakey and Horace Silver formed the Jazz Messengers. Blakey took over when Silver left and so began the long, near four-decade tenure of the ultimate traveling academy of contemporary small-band jazz. It was the prototype Hard Bop ensemble playing exciting, aggressive blues-based material....an ideal setting for new young players who were given the opportunity to get playing experience, to find their own voices and then encouraged to move out on their own. ......Images of Jazz