Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
Free For All (EMI/Blue Note Rudy Van Gelder Edition 92426)

With so many Blue Note albums to choose from, you must ask yourself when picking one: "Why this one?" With Free For All, the answer is: "Because this one is a motherfucker!"

I haven't heard a Blakey record from this era that I didn't like, but some stand out more than others. This one isn't the most melodic, but it is absolutely one of the most intense in Blakey's discography. It fucking burns! I seriously need fucking aloe, man! I'm getting scorched literally to death!

The title track is what does it – eleven minutes of hard bop about as far out as Blakey ever got. It's still well structured, but the focus is on extended soloing, and Wayne Shorter just blisters through it – it's one of his finest moments. The band (Blakey, Shorter, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Cedar Walton on keys, and Reggie Workman on bass) sounds like a locomotive, and I don't mind being tied to the tracks.

Hubbard gets his blistering moment on "The Core," in which he tears it up so bad you won't walk for weeks. Fuck! This band was fucking hot. The last track, "Pensativa," takes things down a notch with a Latin-tinged rhythm and a pretty melody that cools you off … a little. This one belongs to Walton through and through.

Stone-cold classic. Fuck your mother. It's a Free For All.

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Review by Savage Pampas