Alfred Lion had wanted this record for years. Ira Gitler, in the original notes, takes the story back to the 1940s, when Lion went up to the Club Sudan to hear Billy Eckstine's band and came away taken with its drummer. Art Blakey became Blue Note's house drummer after the Monk trio dates of 1947. In 1953 he cut "Message From Kenya" with the conga player Sabu Martinez. By 1954 he and Lion were talking about a whole session built on drums, and the idea kept coming back for three years. Some around the label thought it was a mad plan.
It finally happened on Thursday night, March 7, 1957. The room was Manhattan Towers, a hall in New York, not the studio in Hackensack; the Audio review reprinted on The Jazz Tome says Rudy Van Gelder came over to record it. Blakey picked the players, apart from the Latin section, which Sabu chose. There were four drummers: Blakey, Jo Jones, Art Taylor and Charles "Specs" Wright, with Jones and Wright sharing the timpani. Sabu played bongos and timbales, with Carlos "Patato" Valdés and José Valiente on congas, Ubaldo Nieto on timbales and Evilio Quintero on cowbell, maracas and tree log. Ray Bryant played piano, Wendell Marshall bass and Herbie Mann flute, mostly wooden ones.
Nothing was rehearsed; there were no scores.
Ira Gitler, original liner notes
Blakey talked each tune through before it was played. There were some nerves at first. His advice to the band:
Just listen to each other. Close your eyes and think you're home.
Art Blakey, in Ira Gitler's original liner notes
Eight tunes came out of the night, all credited to Blakey. Four are here. Side one opens with "Buhaina Chant," named for Blakey's Muslim name, Abdallah Buhaina, as Gitler gives it. Jo Jones starts it on timpani, Sabu chants, Blakey takes over, and then Wright, Blakey and Taylor trade. On "Ya Ya," Sabu and the chorus act out a mother and child arguing over whether the child can go out to play. Side two has "Toffi," where Blakey sings, in African languages including Swahili, of villagers coming home to rebuild a burned village; Bryant takes the first solo. "Split Skins" is a drum trio: Blakey, Taylor and Jones trade while the others hold the beat.
Wikipedia notes that Blakey had tried the idea on one side of Drum Suite for Columbia, out the month before this one. Volume 1 came out in late May 1957, and the other four tunes followed on Orgy in Rhythm Volume 2 that October. Blakey went back to Manhattan Towers with a new drum choir in November 1958 for Holiday for Skins.
