Donald Byrd was a professor in Howard University's Department of Music, where he founded the school's Jazz Studies Program and Black Music Department, regularly pulling the most talented students off campus to tour with his own band. In 1973 he formalized a separate group out of that pipeline, naming it after an old Byrd album: bassist Joe Hall, percussionist Pericles "Perk" Jacobs Jr., drummer Keith Killgo, guitarist Barney Perry, keyboardist Kevin Toney, and reedman Allan Barnes. The name became official when the group backed Byrd on his 1973 live album Cookin' with Blue Note at Montreux. Donald Byrd's own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile.

The Blackbyrds debuted as their own act in 1974, and by 1975 had become genuine crossover-jazz exemplars in their own right with "Walking in Rhythm," a Top Ten hit across four separate Billboard charts, including the Hot 100. They followed it with more hits, including "Rock Creek Park," an upbeat tribute to the Washington, D.C. park that peaked at No. 37 on the R&B chart, and "Mysterious Vibes." Across studio albums including Flying Start (1974), City Life (1975), Unfinished Business (1976), Action (1977), and Better Days (1980), the band carried the jazz-funk sound their teacher had helped pioneer directly into mainstream radio, a commercial reach that outpaced Byrd's own solo chart performance during the same years.

The Blackbyrds' sound extended the jazz-funk template Donald Byrd had begun exploring with the Mizell Brothers into a full working band context, tight horn-and-rhythm arrangements built for radio, a direct continuation of the crossover instinct their professor instilled in them at Howard.