Recorded just before lockdown 17 former members of the Jazz Messengers and Legacy Messengers including the leader Ralph Peterson feature on the stellar September release Onward and Upward, it has just been announced. Two tracks from the album are streaming at the moment. Seventeen is a significant number regards Art Blakey given that Blakey's first working band in the 1940s was an outfit called the Seventeen Messengers. The album includes new tunes and among the personnel are Joanne Brackeen, Kevin Eubanks, Robin Eubanks, Craig Handy and Jean Toussaint. To be released on Peterson's own Onyx label.
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