Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Black Mages was formed by Kenichiro Fukui and Tsuyoshi Sekito in 2002 and officially disbanded on the 7th of August 2010. Nobuo Uematsu joined the group after a live performance in 2002 and served as the producer for all three albums.
The first album released by The Black Mages was titled The Black Mages and it was released on the 19th of February 2003. This album contained ten battle themes from the Final Fantasy series arranged in a hybrid of hard rock and progressive metal.
The Black Mages disbanded on the 7th of August 2010 because Nobuo Uematsu could not find time to rehearse with his colleagues. The band was formed as a Square Enix band which meant they were unable to perform arrangements of work he had composed after leaving Square Enix or to focus on original pieces due to trademark and licensing restrictions.
The Black Mages performed their first concert on the 26th of April 2003 in the Shibuya-AX concert hall in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. They wore the student uniform of Kanagawa University for a free concert at Kanagawa University in Kanagawa, Japan, on the 3rd of November 2003.
The second album The Black Mages II: The Skies Above featured songs performed by vocalists Kazco Hamano and Tomoaki Watanabe. The album also included a non-Final Fantasy track titled Blue Blast Winning the Rainbow and a line spoken by Alexander O. Smith in the track Maybe I'm a Lion.