Art Blakey was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he became a Muslim. Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In the mid-1950s Horace Silver and Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers, a group that the drummer was associated with for the next 35 years.
