Jazz at the Lesher Center Series: Ralph Peterson & The Messenger Legacy Sextet: Art Blakey’s Centennial Year

For the eighth year in a row, the Diablo Regional Arts Association proudly announces this year’s singular Jazz at the Lesher Center 2019 Concert Series, featuring many of today’s most lauded jazz artists and the brightest rising talents. The Messenger Legacy is an elite line-up of six alumni of one of jazz' most influential bands -- Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. The performance commemorates the centennial of Blakey's birth and honors the legacy of the man whose bands became one of the most important institutions of apprenticeship in American music history. Among those Blakey nurtured in their early careers are Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, Chick Corea, and Wynton Marsalis. Drummer Ralph Peterson leads the legacy band. He was selected by Blakey to play alongside him in 1983 in the Messenger's two-drummer big band. The band is intergenerational featuring alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, tenor saxophonist Bill Pierce, who were mainstays in the late 70s and 80s, bassist Essiet Essiet from Nigeria, trumpeter Brian Lynch, and pianist Geoffrey Keezer.