Art Blakey





Arthur Blakey (Abdullah Ibn Buhaina) (1919 - 1990) was an American jazz
drummer. In the 1940s he was a member of Mary Lou Williams', Fletcher
Henderson's, and Billy Eckstine's bands. He converted to Islam during a long
visit to West Africa in the late 1940s and briefly took the name Abdullah
Ibn Buhaina. In 1955 he and Horace Silver founded the Jazz Messengers, a
hard bop group which trained many of the most important young musicians of
the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Blakey took the group over when Silver left
after the band's first year. He continued performing into the late 1980s.