Now here's what you call an archival gold nugget!

A rediscovered studio recording by the short-lived spring 1959 edition of Blakey's Messengers, which unlike other recent vault-retrievals, is a genuine ‘album’ rather than a sewn-together set of off-cuts.

Part of the reason for its long-deferred release was that of the six pieces it comprises four were rerecorded by Blue Note live at Birdland a month later for the two LP volumes of At The Jazz Corner of The World. Fear not though: these are not pallid studio warmups – this is a working band positively on fire!

Sandwiched between the Benny Golson/Moanin' edition of the group and its equally notable successor with Wayne Shorter in the tenor chair, this all-but-forgotten Messengers line-up might just be the apotheosis of hard bop. Morgan and Mobley (the ‘M & M’ commemorated in one track title) were a front-line made for each other, one puckish and bubbling, the other slyly lyrical. Add what has to be one of Blakey's pushiest rhythm teams with Timmons and Merritt and you have the makings of a classic.

And that's exactly what Just Coolin' is: that much-touted thing – a truly ‘classic’ Blue Note. There are simply too many high spots to capture here, but right from the soulful ‘Hipsippy Blues’ which opens the disc (a backbeated minor blues that is a virtual definition of the labels ‘house’ style), through the groovy ‘Close Your Eyes’ and the way-up-there burning of ‘Jimerick’ you have all the elements that made Blakey and Blue Note's association so apposite. Short at around 39 minutes, this is a set with absolutely no filler, but that's the point: this killer is the very essence of hard bop. An album that deserves all the stars you can throw at it.

Jazzwisetalks to archive producer Zev Feldman:

This album is obviously a significant find for Blakey and Blue Note fans. Why hasn't it been released before?

In short, Blue Note ended up recording the band at Birdland five weeks after this session, playing much of the same material, and Alfred Lion decided to release those recordings as At The Jazz Corner of the World instead. That's of course one of the greatest Blakey recordings of all time and has become a classic – but we felt this session was deserving of an official release.

With Rudy Van Gelder no longer able to supervise the remastering, how did you approach capturing the famous ‘Blue Note sound’?

Although Rudy is no longer with us, we're very fortunate to have some very experienced and talented engineers working with us today. For the CD and digital editions, we used the legendary Bernie Grundman, who was a protege of Roy DuNann of Contemporary Records. Bernie's a really important figure who has engineered classic albums from Michael Jackson's Thriller to Steely Dan's Aja. For the LP mastering, I felt that we needed to take this project to the Tone Poet series engineer, the great Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. Kevin seemed like a natural fit for this project and I think the fans will agree.

How do you think this album adds to the Art Blakey legacy?

I think it uncovers an important chapter in Art Blakey's illustrious career. It's revelatory to have a chance to hear what was going on with this music five weeks before the Birdland performances. It also adds to the Blue Note legacy, and reminds us that in this 100th anniversary year of Art's birth that there are still recordings to be revealed. This album allows us to celebrate a very special period.