Hank Mobley

Henry "Hank" Mobley (July 7, 1930 – May 30, 1986) was an American tenor saxophonist and composer.

Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone, that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Lester Young, and his style that was laid-back, subtle and melodic, especially in contrast with players such as Coltrane and Sonny Rollins.

The critic Stacia Proefrock claimed him "one of the most underrated musicians of the bop era."

Mobley's compositions include "Double Exposure", "Soul Station", and "Dig Dis".

Mobley was born in Eastman, Georgia, but was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, near Newark.

He described himself as coming from a musical family and spoke of his uncle playing in a jazz band.

As a child, Mobley played piano.

When he was 16, an illness kept him in the house for several months.

In response, his grandmother bought him a saxophone to help him occupy his time.

He tried to enter a music school in Newark but wasn’t accepted since he wasn’t a resident, so he taught himself theory and harmony from books that his grandmother bought for him, while also teaching himself to play the tenor saxophone.

At 19, he started to play with local bands and, months later, worked for the first time with such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach.

Mobley recorded steadily during the second half of the 1950s for Blue Note records, a series of albums which featured him with Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Kenny Dorham, Jackie McLean, Pepper Adams, Milt Jackson, Sonny Clark, Bobby Timmons, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, among others.

Mobley's former Messengers rhythm section of Silver, Watkins, and Blakey backed him on Hank Mobley and His All Stars and Hank Mobley Quintet.

Roach introduced Mobley to the New York jazz scene in 1951, and over the next two years the latter began composing and recording tunes of his own.

He was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and multiple R&B bands during this period.

When Charlie Parker heard Mobley's playing, he advised the young musician to take more influence from blues music.

In April of 1953, he was hired by Max Roach to play on the album released as The Max Roach Quartet featuring Hank Mobley.

Mobley used the Jazz Messengers' rhythm section as his backing band for his 1955 Blue Note Records debut, Hank Mobley Quartet.

When the Silver/Watkins/Blakey version of The Jazz Messengers split up in 1956, Mobley continued working with Silver for a short time, appearing on Silver's Blue, 6 Pieces of Silver, and The Stylings of Silver.

He later appeared on two Roach sessions recorded in 1957 and 1958 for EmArcy records.

Shortly after working with Roach, he began working regularly with another drummer and bandleader, Art Blakey.

He and Blakey took part in one of the earliest hard bop sessions, alongside pianist Horace Silver, bassist Doug Watkins and trumpeter Kenny Dorham.

The results of these sessions were released as Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers.

At this point, the band was a collective, sometimes appearing and recording under the names of either Silver or Blakey.

Mobley was also in The Jazz Messengers for the recording of the live album At the Cafe Bohemia, and he appeared on the Columbia Records studio album The Jazz Messengers.

In 1958, Mobley was a sideman on Max Roach's album The Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker, playing on three tracks.

Dorham, saxophone player George Coleman, and bassists George Morrow and Nelson Boyd also recorded on the album, which consisted entirely of Parker compositions.

Mobley worked for brief periods with Blakey a few years later, rejoining the drummer's band (which was called Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, and was no longer a collective) in the spring and summer of 1959.

In March of 1959, Mobley rejoined the Jazz Messengers.

He also hired Blakey to play on two of his Blue Note solo albums recorded in 1960.

During the 1960s, he worked chiefly as a leader, and continued to record for Blue Note Records until 1970.

Notable records from this period include Soul Station (1960), generally considered to be his finest recording, and Roll Call (1960).

Both of these albums featured Blakey on drums, and they were the final recordings Mobley made with the drummer.

During this same period, Mobley and Blakey appeared together on a Sonny Clark recording session that was first released in 1979 as My Conception.

Mobley was with the Jazz Messengers during the Newport Jazz Festival that summer, but soon after left the band and was replaced by Wayne Shorter.

With this edition of The Jazz Messengers, he recorded At the Jazz Corner of the World and the studio album first released in 2020 as Just Coolin'.

In a 2020 review of Soul Station, The Recording Academy's Grammy Awards website called the album Mobley's "most rewarding listen despite not breaking the mold."

Grammy has also referred to the album as "effortlessly elegant."

The Guardian gave Mobley's four "classic" albums (Peckin’ Time, Soul Station, Roll Call and Workout) five stars noting that "[f]or once, the word 'classic' is justified."

The article referred to his "infinite subtlety" and ability as "an ingenious composer" as justification for this rating.