Jazz legend Art Blakey was not only a distinguished, inventive, powerful drummer, but along with Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, he was one of the foremost talent scouts in the jazz world. The instrumentalists who flowed in and out of Blakey's ever-evolving collective, The Jazz Messengers, during their thirty-six years were among the most important artists not just of their eras, but of any era. Part oral history, part loving homage, bassist/novelist/journalist Alan Goldsher's Hard Bop Academy is an affectionate look at some of the brilliant instrumentalists who helped make the Jazz Messengers one of the most enduring, most popular, most reliable, and most vital small bands in modern jazz history.

Featuring firsthand interviews with 24 former Jazz Messengers, including Horace Silver, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, and Wynton Marsalis - as well as introductions by Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Javon Jackson, and Bobby Watson - Hard Bop Academy is a literary jam session saluting a group that always had and always will deliver the hard bop message.

ALAN GOLDSHER is the author of the acclaimed jazz novel Jam.

"… a vital book, and Alan Goldsher was definitely the dude to write it - if only because he was there and was moved by what he saw and what he heard from Art Blakey" - BOBBY WATSON

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