I picked up an excellent box set this week: Hank Mobley: The Complete Blue Note Fifties Sessions. I can't imagine that very many copies of this have sold, except to libraries. But it is six CDs of very fine jazz, covering one of the most important periods in the history of our music. I haven't had time to really study the box, but it does seem to me that there is a real shift in sophistication from the earlier fifties to the latter in Mobley's work. The first few discs just seem to me to be more light-hearted, more let's have a good time and sing some songs. By disc six, Mobley is trying to ride the wave a bit more. Now that I think about it, I am losing confidence. Maybe you can tell. Here is piece from the first disc (Hank Mobley (ts) Horace Silver (p) Doug Watkins (b) Art Blakey (d).Hank Mobley/Love for Sale/The Hank Mobley Quartet
And here is one of my favorite standards, from a 1958 date (Lee Morgan (tp) Hank Mobley (ts) Wynton Kelly (p) Paul Chambers (b) Charlie Persip (d) ):Hank Mobley/Speak Low/Peckin
I don't know Charlie Persip, but the rest of the band is twenty-four karat. Lee Morgan is gorgeous, and Wynton Kelly does what he does. There is a lot of great jazz still out there! Enjoy, and if you do, drop me a line. I am getting really lonely here.
Hank Mobley is one more tenor whose blessing was also his curse: he played with Miles on a number of extraordinary recordings. That's a blessing to be sure, because any certified jazz nerd will know your name. It's a bit of a curse as well, because no one will ever quite forgive you for not being John Coltrane. Well, maybe they forgave Wayne Shorter, but that just tells you how hard the curse is to break. Anyway, Mobley plays on Miles Live at the Blackhawk, one of the finest box sets I own. I just don't see how anyone could say that his work there represents a loss. Mobley also recorded Soul Station, his magnum opus and certainly one of the classic modern jazz documents. This week I got a hold of Workout and Another Workout. Mobley could have spent a few dollars hiring an adman to name his albums. All three recordings feature Paul Chambers on bass and Wynton Kelly on piano. That's a solid, blues based trio there. Soul Station has Art Blakey on drums.
Workout has Philly Joe Jones on drums, which is one awesome rhythm section. Grant Green also plays guitar. Workout was recorded in March of 1961. The material on Another Workout was recorded the following December, minus Green's guitar. I have a great fondness for the swinging blues bop that was Mobley's great gift. It's just plain happy music, full of the joy of life. Here is a sample:Hank Mobley/Greasin' Easy/Workout
And dig dis sample for comparison from the great work:Hank Mobley/Dig Dis/Soul Station
