Label: Blue Note

Reissued 1/23/2026, Originally released 1965

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers' Free for All was perhaps the band's most potent album featuring a powerful sextet line-up with the great drummer joined by tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianist Cedar Walton, and bassist Reggie Workman. Recorded in February 1964, it had been more than two years since the Messengers had recorded for Blue Note, and the music bristled with the charged energy of the civil rights movement including the blistering title track and roiling "Hammer Head," both composed by Shorter, as well as Hubbard's kinetic piece "The Core" dedicated to the Congress of Racial Equality. The album closes in a joyful mood with a timeless rendition of Clare Fischer's bossa nova flavored jazz standard "Pensativa."

Track listing:

1. Free for All
   
2. Hammer Head
   
3. Core
   
4. Pensativa