REISSUES : Getting the Message From Blakey, Friends : ***** ART BLAKEY’S JAZZ MESSENGERS, “The History of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers”, <i> Blue Note</i> : **** “The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Art Blakey’s 1960 Jazz Messengers”, <i> Mosaic</i>

Just two years after Art Blakey’s death on Oct. 16, 1990, a flood of reissues has arrived, celebrating his career as a protean drummer and his genius for grooming talent. The Jazz Messengers, usually a quintet or a sextet, continued almost without interruption from 1954 until their leader’s demise. The ever-changing personnel of the band included a Who’s Who of modern jazz: trumpeters Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and Wynton Marsalis; saxophonists Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Branford Marsalis and Billy Pierce; and pianists Horace Silver, Cedar Walton, Bobby Timmons and, briefly, Keith Jarrett, among many others.

High on the list of these reissue collections is the six-CD Mosaic package, on which Blakey’s key sidemen were Shorter, Morgan and Timmons. All three are in cohesive, spirited form, and all are well represented as composers.

Among the 18 Shorter originals are the soul-oriented “Chess Players,” the attractive waltz “Sleeping Dancers Sleep On” and the quirky “Ping Pong” with its stop-time vamp effects. Morgan’s nine works include the exotic “Afrique” and the infectious gospel blues “Petty Larceny.” Timmons has three pieces, the best (and best known) being “Dat Dere,” which enjoyed a second life when lyrics were added.

Some of the music was recorded live at Birdland in New York, adding a welcome touch of intimacy to this representation of a classic group. The packaging and Bob Blumenthal’s notes are up to Mosaic’s standard. (Available by mail from Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn. 06902. Price: $90.)

The best overall picture of Blakey’s immeasurable contribution to jazz is the three-CD Blue Note set. Here one finds everything from a 1947 oddity--”The Thin Man,” by a ragged, boppish octet--that preceded the Messengers’ birth as an organized unit to pieces that showcase such renowned sidemen as pianists Silver and Walton, trumpeters Brown, Shaw, Valeri Ponomarev and Wynton Marsalis and saxophonists Mobley and Benny Golson.

What makes this collection indispensable is the inclusion of five tracks by the group this listener, a longtime Blakey student, considers the best of all. Benefiting from a three-horn front line, it comprised Hubbard, Curtis Fuller on trombone and Shorter, with Walton, Blakey and bassist Jymie Merritt.

Such pieces as Walton’s “Mosaic,” Fuller’s “Arabia” (and his ingenious reworking of “Three Blind Mice”), Hubbard’s now-standard “Up Jumped Spring” and Shorter’s “Free for All,” all recorded between 1961 and 1964, found the Messengers at their pinnacle from every standpoint: quality of the solos and compositions and Blakey’s ever-indomitable drive.

There are also two cuts with Morgan replacing Hubbard, then two later tracks: a 1973 Shaw feature and a cut recorded in 1977, when the brilliant Soviet trumpeter Ponomarev had taken over. The final cut stems from a Paris date in 1981 with Marsalis, then age 19.

Note: There are three cuts that are also heard on the Mosaic set--”Lester Left Town” (Shorter’s eulogy for Lester Young), “Night in Tunisia” and “Ping Pong.”

Another version of the Messengers is heard on “Hard Champion,” a single CD on Evidence, most of which was taped in 1985 when Terence Blanchard was the trumpeter and the saxes were Donald Harrison and Jean Toussaint. We jump to 1987 for the title track, which features pianist Benny Green, trumpeter Philip Harper and saxophonists Kenny Garrett and Javon Jackson.

No doubt over the years Art Blakey’s entire recorded legacy will find its way onto CDs. Until then, these sets, most notably the Blue Note collection, afford a priceless reminder of his nonpareil contribution.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent). A rating of five stars is reserved for classic reissues or retrospectives.