Moanin’ is widely regarded as one of the finest albums in the history of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. It was the first LP by the third formation of the group, featuring Lee Morgan, Benny Golson (composer of most of the songs), Bobby Timmons, and Jymie Merritt.

Lee Morgan (1938-1972) was only 20-years old at the time the Jazz Messengers recorded Moanin’. His recording debut with Blakey had occurred the previous year at a session that featured an expanded version of the Jazz Messengers (called “the Jazz Messengers plus four”) on April 2, 1957. Benny Golson is one of the last living legends of that era (he is 89 years old at this writing). He wrote four of the songs from Moanin’. Pianist Bobby Timmons stayed with Blakey from 1958 to 1961. He participated on some of the best Jazz Messengers recordings (including, of course, the present album), and contributed such hits of his own as the title track, “Moanin’”. Like Morgan, Timmons died young due to cirrhosis of the liver in 1974, at age 38.