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The Freedom Rider
Studio album by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Released	February 1964
Recorded	February 12, 18 and May 27, 1961
Studio	Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs
Genre	Jazz
Length	54:01 (CD reissue)
Label	Blue Note Records
Producer	Alfred Lion
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers chronology
Pisces (1961) The Freedom Rider (1964) Roots & Herbs (1961)

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Source	Rating
Allmusic
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings

The Freedom Rider is an album by jazz drummer Art Blakey and his group the Jazz Messengers, recorded in 1961 and released in 1964 by Blue Note Records. Continuing Blakey's distinct brand of hard bop, this album features compositions from Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Blakey himself, and Kenny Dorham, a former Jazz Messenger. This was the final album by this particular edition of the Jazz Messengers, who had been together for 18 months, as Lee Morgan left after this album and was replaced by Freddie Hubbard.

The title track is a seven-and-a-half-minute solo drum composition by Blakey that combines swing, Latin American and African rhythmic influences, and is named in honor of the Freedom Riders—activists who participated in American Civil Rights Movement Freedom Rides beginning in 1961.

In 2019, to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Art Blakey’s birth, The Freedom Rider was one of five albums to be reissued in LP special editions by Blue Note Records, as a Vinyl Me, Please exclusive with new liner notes by Evan Haga.

Track listing

1. "Tell It Like It Is" (Shorter) – 7:53
2. "The Freedom Rider" (Blakey) – 7:25
3. "El Toro" (Shorter) – 6:20
4. "Petty Larceny" (Morgan) – 6:14
5. "Blue Lace" (Morgan) – 5:59

Bonus tracks on CD reissue:

6. "Uptight" (Morgan) – 6:12
7. "Pisces" (Morgan) – 6:52
8. "Blue Ching" (Kenny Dorham) – 6:43

Personnel

• Art Blakey — drums
• Lee Morgan — trumpet
• Wayne Shorter — tenor saxophone
• Bobby Timmons — piano
• Jymie Merritt — double bass

References

1. Liner notes by Michael Cuscuna to 2015 Japanese SHM-CD reissue
2. The Freedom Rider at AllMusic
3. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 25. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
4. Cook, Richard; Brian Morton (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings. The Penguin Guide to Jazz (9th ed.). London: Penguin. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-14-103401-0.
5. ^ Haga, Evan (27 August 2019). "Art Blakey's Civil Rights Jazz: The Liner Notes For Our New Edition Of 'The Freedom Rider'". Vinyl Me, Please. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
6. "Art Blakey at 100". Blue Note Records. 11 October 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2024.

• 1964 albums
• Art Blakey albums
• The Jazz Messengers albums
• Albums produced by Alfred Lion
• Blue Note Records albums
• Albums recorded at Van Gelder Studio