Billboard : 04/29/1957
Score of 76

An oft-times compelling, rhythmic program that derives its distinction from solos by the facile Milt Jackson, H. Silver and Mobley, who is evolving into one of the most competent tenor men around. All the tunes are Mobley originals. Should be a good market for this swingin’ “mainstream” package.

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Cash Box : 05/04/1957

The line-up here, and its performance, is worthy of the “all-star” label. Mobley (tenor sax), one of Blue Note’s consistently solid jazzmen, has put his men such as Milt Jackson (vibes), Horace Silver (piano), and Art Blakey (drums) on 5 Mobley originals. Four of the sessions are in delectable high spirts, while the remaining run a mellow blues course. Doug Watkins (bass) has some excellent moments on Lower Stratosphere. Impressive jazz platter.

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Down Beat : 06/13/1957
Ralph J. Gleason : 2.5 stars

There are two tracks on this LP of this LP of five Mobley originals which save it from being utterly banal – the sort of rambling blowing session which is the worst part of the eastern answer to the western needlepoint.

There are Lower Stratosphere, a blues with a fine mellow feeling, in which all the participants take excellent choruses and wherein Blakey, whom I am beginning to regard as the personification of bad taste in drummers (hear his distracting chain shaking behind Milt on Don’t Walk) is mercifully subdued, and Mobley’s Musings, in which the suede-toned Mobley tenor with its fuzzy timber is displayed in a romantic, almost cloyingly sweet mood but carries it off quite successfully with the result a pleasant, if slightly bland pastel print.

The rest of the LP not only suffers from a lack of inspiration but from inadequate recording of the whole group, particularly Jackson’s vibes, which sound sometimes as though they were under water. Mobley, who is less of a line-plunger than most of his eastern contemporaries, has the makings of a lovely tone, and if he reaches a point where he can maintain interest consistently as he does in the two good tracks, he could become an important tenor voice. As it is, he lacks definition as a soloist.

Leonard Feather, A.E.Y.O.J., possibly suffering from combat fatigue, contributes a giddy set of notes.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

Although Hank Mobley shows up at Blue Note almost as regularly as the mailman, and despite the unflaggingly high quality of his previous ventures on the label (we’ll just cite his own session on 1540 and the date with Horace Silver on 1539 as recent samples) the release of this new date is an event of special moment, one that should induce excited anticipation on the part of his regular fans, since on this occasion he is in the company of a particularly distinguished group of individuals.

The work of Milt Jackson calls for no recommendation to any Blue Noter; as BLP 1509 recently reminded us, he has been an important constituent of this catalogue ever since the late 1940s. Similarly the contributions of Messrs. Silver, Watkins and Blakey are of too consistently high a caliber to justify any sales talk, as their loyal retinue well knows. Accordingly, I intend to preempt the space now at my disposal for a few rather more general reflections that came to mind as I listened to the five muscularly convincing performances in this set.

In effect, these sides constitute an answer to a rather provocative piece by Douglas Watt that appeared recently in the New York Daily News. Learning that a school of jazz was to be established at the Berkshire Music Barn in the summer of 1957, he observed that while this set-up lends additional dignity to jazz as an art form, it also seems to offer additional evidence that “jazz is a dying art.” Said Watt: “The experts have finally taken over, and a music that was distinguished by its spontaneity and gaiety has become – inevitably, I suppose – a carefully thought-out exercise.”

Anticipating the argument that the school of jazz has the purpose of encouraging creativeness, he admitted that “it may do so, but not necessarily along jazz lines. Lewis‘ modern jazz quartet, for example, is one of the most unjazzlike units on the scene; it produces sensitive chamber music with echoes of jazz in it.”

Jazz probably means different things to different people, he conceded, but “to most of us, I think, it signifies a happy, immediate form of musical expression with a pronounced beat that sets the feet to tapping. Unfortunately, there seems to have been no way to keep developing… Young, schooled musicians set to work altering it and making it into a concert music more acceptable to their sophisticated tastes and erudition.”

It’s easy to see what Watt wants. He wants an avoidance of the consciously intellectual approach to jazz and an adherence to the honestly emotional. He is unduly pessimistic in his assumption that jazz is a dying art that has been taken over by the experts. Jazz is hardy enough and self-sufficient enough to survive the onslaught of expertism and (if I may resort to a ten-syllable word just this once) overintellectualization. (I said it and I’m sorry.)

It should be clear why this Hank Mobley LP brought these reflections to mind, for like almost everything in Blue Note’s wonderfully rich and varied jazz catalogue, these sides are an eloquent refutation of the charge that jazz is losing its spontaneity and gaiety.

Fundamentally 99% of the jazz that has, from the beginning up to the present, shown itself to have the lasting value, is composed of fixed-tempo improvisation on changes, and written music on similar changes written in an analogous style. This does not mean that jazz always will maintain these qualities in the same ratio; it does not invalidate the experiments that the Lewises and the Minguses and the Maceros are undertaking. But it is most probable, and most desirably in my personal view (and no doubt in Watt’s) that a healthy proportion of the jazz we hear created in years to come will be similarly rooted. The swinging rhythmic concept of jazz and the gradually expanding harmonic foundation of its improvisations and arrangements need not draw from any extraneous source to continue evolving, as Mobley & Co. demonstrate most eloquently here.

I won’t go into too many details about what you will hear on these sides, but first there must be a general observation that Hank has never played better, nor in better surroundings, and that Milt Jackson is allowed to stretch himself and swing with this magnificent rhythm section as he has rarely been able to swing these past two or three years.

The tunes are all unpretentious Mobley originals. Reunion has a downward line a la Lover, played in sonorous tenor-and-vibes unison. The tempo slows to medium for Ultramarine, a minor-key piece that leads surprisingly to a weird repeated-major-chord finale.

Don’t Walk has a virile Blakey intro leading to a theme played just by Hank, with Art’s Charleston beats giving it the appropriate rhythmic impetus. Lower Stratosphere is a blues, with some of the funkiest Silver and Bags you’ve heard in a long time, and a spirited, agile solo by Watkins. The side closes with Mobley’s Musings, a pretty tune that shows, in the last notes of the phrases that end bars 2 and 4, how the flatted fifth can become a comfortable adjunct of a melodically attractive ballad. Mobley, Horace and Bags are all heard to advantage.

I’m going to ask Alfred Lion to send a copy of this LP to Mr. Watt. I hope it will restore some of his waning faith in jazz, and destroy some of his fears about the inroads of the experts. If what he’s looking for in jazz is less preaching, teaching and speeching, and more cooking, sailing and wailing, he’d better jump aboard with Hank. I’m sure that like you and me he’ll have a ball.