A fresh, elemental energy surges from this album, whose introduction itself is legendary: "We have something special down here in Birdland this evening," announces Pee Wee Marquette into the microphone. And it truly was something very special. This very announcement was famously sampled by US3 on their track "Cantaloop". Art Blakey was at least as fantastic a bandleader as he was a drummer, although his stick work was groundbreaking in its own right, with his storm-raising solos built on enormous crescendos. Pianist Horace Silver was still a member of the Blakey Quintet here, though they would later co-found the legendary Jazz Messengers. The sonic ideal strongly associated with Blue Note was primarily born through Blakey and his band, becoming the basic formula for jazz worldwide for decades, and remains just as fresh today as it was in 1953.