| Ritual | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers |
| Cover: | Ritual by Art Blakey.jpg |
| Released: | 1960 |
| Recorded: | January 14 and February 11, 1957 |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 61:30 |
| Label: | Pacific Jazz (1960, 1962, see text) Blue Note (1988) |
| Producer: | George Avakian Michael Cuscuna |
| Chronology: | Art Blakey |
| Prev Title: | A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2 |
| Prev Year: | 1956 |
| Next Title: | Drum Suite |
| Next Year: | 1956-57 |
Ritual is a studio album by the Jazz Messengers featuring Art Blakey. Three years after being recorded, it was first released on the Pacific Jazz Records label as PJM-402,[1] and reissued by them in 1962, with an Elmo Hope session, as Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers/The Elmo Hope Quintet* Featuring Harold Land as PJ-33.[2] It has been reissued on CD.[3]
This later CD, however, features all the recordings from the original Ritual release, plus the Blakey album Once Upon a Groove, which featured two additional songs recorded in the same 1957 sessions, but not released for several decades (as Blue Note LT-1065). This album is highlighted by hard-swinging sounds from saxophonist Jackie McLean, who previously made his debut with Miles Davis in 1951, and trumpeter Bill Hardman, who played with Charles Mingus during the previous year earlier in 1956.
Note: Among many re-issues and compilations, tracks 3, 4, 5, and 6 were re-issued in 1957 on Jazztone's Jazz Messages