The late drummer/leader Art Blakey was one of jazz's sharpest talent-spotters, an irrepressible cheerleader for the gospelly bluesy hard-bop style, and a thrilling drummer to hear and watch whose surging grooves and melodic tom-tom figures could propel almost any band into orbit – let alone the generations of his Messengers line-ups that included the young Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, the Marsalises, and many more budding stars. Ralph Peterson, Blakey's chosen drumming deputy, leads a cracking sextet of Blakey alumni here, including saxophonists Bill Pierce and Bobby Watson, and pianist Geoffrey Keezer, in the latest in his series of Jazz Messengers tributes. The 11 tracks are familiar standbys, with Watson's alto voice-like and graceful on his own ‘Wheel Within A Wheel’, while Freddie Hubbard's riff-slamming ‘The Core’ gets fiery treatments from Watson and a shrill, trilling Brian Lynch on trumpet, and ‘Blues March’ (the rocking showpiece that infallibly set Messengers audiences cheering in Blakey's heyday) is set rolling by hooting Dexter Gordon-ish tenor warbles and imperious double-time from Bill Pierce, and embroidered by all the soloists. Benny Golson's loping ‘Along Came Betty’ takes Geoffrey Keezer to the edge of unstructured on one of several sparkling interventions, Wayne Shorter's ‘Children Of The Night’ is that genius's typically oblique, improv-challenging take on the emphatically accented music Blakey favoured, and Lynch, Watson, Pierce, Keezer and a freewheeling Peterson (melodic in the intro, dramatically Blakey-quoting in the drums finale) rekindle the Ellington/Tizol classic ‘Caravan’. The players keep faith with the tradition rather than chancing any 21st century genre-bends, but it was a great tradition, celebrated with expert devotion here.