CD (Item 38524) Universal (France), 1959 -- Condition: Mint In 1959, (December 18th, a Friday) the Theatre des Champs-Elysees was the scene of a concert where the audience might have thought they were being taken for a ride. For a start, the programme turned out to be quite different from the one announced: the list of musicians was correct, but the actual existence of "Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers Big Band" was merely wishful thinking...and as for the "new compositions and original arrangements by Raymond Fol, Jack Marray (alias Duke Jordan), Lee Morgan, Martial Solal and Barney Wilen", which the ghost band was scheduled to perform, it seems that not a single note had ever been scored... The initial project supposed that a number of American musicians in Paris at the time would gracefully accept the invitation to join Art Blakey's group. Most of them probably had better things to do, even if only for an evening, than link their destiny to that of the drummer, who'd become an idol since his triumph at the Olympia theatre the year before, not to mention his gigs at the Club St. Germain.