It was the evening of 29 November 1958. On the stage of the Kurhaus in Scheveningen, Art Blakey grabbed the microphone to say, “I would like to take a moment and say good evening on behalf of the Jazz Messengers and myself.” Everyone present could feel that this was a concert that would go down in history.

Art Blakey had just turned thirty-nine. He was “Bu” to those who knew that late in the 1940s he had taken the name of Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. In 1954,he had co-founded the Jazz Messengers with pianist Horace Silver, but now he led the quintet single-handedly, identifying the most outstanding talents, mentoring them, taking them to the top. The group of course continued to expand until late in the 1980s to include other artists – as talented as they were diverse – such as Wayne Shorter, Clifford Brown, the Marsalis brothers and Keith Jarrett. But already in 1958, the ensemble was inspired, imbued with confidence, crowned with success, and most importantly, original. Pianist Bobby Timmons had just composed the emblematic “Moanin’”and saxophonist Benny Golson, his famous “Along Came Betty”, songs that the Jazz Messengers interspersed with the compositions of their illustrious fellow musicians: Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. The crème de la crème of the jazz world was on stage that evening, their performance fallen into oblivion until this recording.