Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin' - 1959

Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990), known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an AmericanGrammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard.

Blakey was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1982), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

This was Blakey's first album for Blue Note in several years, after a period of recording for a miscellany of labels, and marked both a homecoming and a fresh start. The album stands as one of the archetypal hard bop albums of the era, for the intensity of Blakey's drumming and the work of Morgan, Golson and Timmons, and for its combination of old-fashioned gospel and blues influences with a sophisticated modern jazz sensibility. The album was identified by Scott Yanow in his Allmusic essay "Hard Bop" as one of the 17 Essential Hard Bop Recordings.

Lester Young & Teddy Wilson - Press and Teddy - 1956

Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959),[1] nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums.

Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument, playing with a cool tone and using sophisticated harmonies. He invented or popularized much of the hipster ethos which came to be associated with the music.

Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson (November 24, 1912 - July 31, 1986) was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Chet Baker Quartet Featuring Russ Freeman - 1953

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer. Though his music earned him a large following (particularly albums featuring his vocals, such as Chet Baker Sings), Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit." He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Russell Donald Freeman (May 28, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois – June 27, 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada) was a bebop and cool jazz pianist and composer. Initially, Freeman was classically trained. His reputation as a jazz pianist grew in the 1940s after working with Art Pepper & Shorty Rogers, and led to collaborations in the 1950s withChet Baker (Chet Baker Sings) and Shelly Manne (Shelly Manne's "The Three" & "The Two").