Mr. Fuller’s five-chorus solo on “Blue Train” begins by playing off the last few notes of the trumpeter Lee Morgan’s improvisation, as if curiously picking up an object a friend had just put down. “I made a comment,” Mr. Fuller said in a 2007 interview for the National Endowment for the Arts, recalling the scene at Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey. “‘John, you put this music on us on a moment’s notice. Among his many original tunes are “À La Mode,” “Arabia” and “Buhaina’s Delight,” all of which are now considered standards. Those three pieces found their way into the repertoire of the drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, hard bop’s flagship ensemble, of which Mr. Fuller was a core member from the early to the middle 1960s.

Source: New York Times May 14, 2021 15:11 UTC