Jazz and Blues Lounge

What I’m Groovin’ to: A YouTube Post

by balaspa on May 28th, 2008

Tonight I am just in a mellow mood. It’s been a rough couple of nights for your humble writer of the Jazz and Blues Lounge. For some reason, I have not slept well in a couple of nights. So, as I write this one, I am barely conscious. When I get that way, man, I love to find something me relatiely mellow and just, cool, to listen to. You can’t do much bette for that than Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers.

I have written about Art before on this blog. He was a hugely talented musician in his own right, but he truly became famous as the leader of his Jazz Messengers group. All throughout his career he was looking for the best and brightest young musicians and putting them in his group. They were some of my favorites to play at ol’ KSLH radio back when I was at Webster University.

So, I found a performance from 1961 at YouTube of Art and his Jazz Messengers. It is a tune titled “Dat Dere” which makes me wonder if some south-side Chicago dude made up that particular title. That’s the way so many Chicagoans talk. If you want to impress your friends and speak like a Chicagoan, just start dropping your “TH” on words like that and there. You can also start pronouncing things like “rebar” as “rebarb.” We love adding extra letters here.

But anyway, enough teasing of my fellow Chicagoans and get ready to get mellow. Kick back and enjoy his performance of one of the all-time greats. This is Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers and a tune called “Dat Dere.”

POSTED IN: Bands, Chicago, jazz, jazz clubs