As Art Blakey said 20 years before on his album with Clifford Brown, he declared then that he saw himself as bringing up “young guys” the rest of his life, thus starting the Art Blakey School of Hard Bop, with scores of graduates, ranging from Hank Mobley to Wynton Marsalis.
This 1976 team, recorded in June of 1976 at the Moers Jazzfestival in Germany, has his with a sort of transitional group, just before he brought in the Korner band of Bobby Watson/as, Valeri Ponomarev/tp and Walter Davis/p, but already with David Schnitter/ts and bringing in fresh Chris Amberger/b, veteran Bill Hardman/tp and Mickey Tucker/p.
Blakey is in an exuberant mood, giving drum solo introductions or towards the end of the piece and displaying his patented press roll as if it were going out of style. Schnitter gives a bel canto to Coltrane-ish aria on “I Can’t Get Started” while a couple Benny Golson classics, “Blues March” and “Along Came Betty” have Blakey riding the whip. Tucker stretches out on “Uranus” and Hardman is bright and brassy for “Backgammon” with the team sounding like a hard bop avalanche. No fusion, no confusion.