Billboard : 06/30/1958
Three stars

Hank Mobley shows off some listenable tenor work on this new album, his fourth for the label. On this new release by the driving tenor man, he is aided by C. Porter on alto and tenor, Bill Harman on trumpet, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. Tunes include the standard Falling In Love With Love, the jazz classic, Bag’s Groove, and three originals, one of the best being Might Moe and Joe.

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Down Beat : 10/30/1958
John A. Tynan : 3.5 stars

One of the nicer things about Al Lion and associates in the Blue Note firm is that they don’t hesitate to present new talent they consider worthwhile.

On this set is presented 29-year-old Philadelphia saxman Curtis Porter, who is equal to the company. Although it is Mobley‘s date, the leader allows generous space for the wailing of his fellow reedman, which makes for a high degree of hard blowing.

Porter’s alto and tenor work is more intensely staccato than Mobley’s. He skips through his solos with light-footed adroitness, delicately sparring with the changes. And always he swings hard.

Trumpeter Hardman remains a wishful spokesman for the late Clifford Brown. Though he blows with controlled ferocity and biting tone, he lacks the sense of construction and taste so necessary to major status.

Clark, Chambers, and Taylor continue in a churning rhythm section, with Sonny’s frequent solos gems of taste and swing. His rippling touch and original, melodic constructions contribute much to the album’s rating.

Of the three originals here, Porter wrote two (Joe and News); Exposure is Mobley’s. None is outstanding compositionally, but News offers an attractively melodic theme.

Mobley’s tenor is big, bustling, hard, and virile – but still a considerable cut below the level established and sustained by Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. When he speaks, though, it is with authority.

The good moments are many in this set, and quite a few of them come from the horns of newcomer Porter. Let’s hear more of him.

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Liner Notes by Robert Levin

Hank Mobley, currently a member of the Max Roach Quintet and surely one of the most proficient tenor saxophonists in modern jazz, is here presented for the fourth time on Blue Note as a leader. Hank exhibits in each of these albums a happy consistency – he is always good; replete with ideas and able to articulate them with dexterity.

On this particular record Hank is surrounded by three new-covers [sic] to the Blue Note stable; Curtis Porter, Bill Hardman and Sonny Clark. An introduction to this trio of talented musicians is relevant here, and since Hank has been written about and praised so often in the past, and since his personality makeup is not one of, “Look, man, I’m fronting this group, so I’ll take four choruses and you take one,” I doubt that he will feel slighted if we leave him and go on.

Porter, an extraordinary tenor and alto saxophonist, was born in Philadelphia on September 21, 1929. His parents were separated when he was quite young, and he spent a good part of his youth in West Virginia at the home of his grandmother, and in Detroit where his father had moved. It was during a year long stay in West Virginia, when he was ten, that his grand mother suggested he take up an instrument. He wanted to study tenor, but decided on the clarinet instead, to gain a more rounded knowledge of the reed instruments. Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman, whose bands he heard over the radio and on records, provoked an interest in jazz, and when he heard Dexter Gordon his interest really came alive. “Hearing Dexter the first time was like being shot with a pistol and I’ve still got the wound. He made more of an impression on me than Charlie Parker.” That was in 1946.

That same year Curtis enrolled at Howard University in Washington, DC, continuing his studies on clarinet and majoring in “Music Composition.” After three years at Howard he went to Detroit University for a year and switched to tenor, which has remained (apart from composition) his primary musical vehicle of expression. I say “musical vehicle” because Curtis is also a gifted painter, and although he has no professional aspirations in this direction, he says that painting provides him with more enjoyment than anything else.

Curtis began gigging around Detroit and worked with just about all the fine talents who were eventually to emigrate east. Paul Chambers, incidentally, played his first gig with Curtis. About this time Curtis met Benny Golson. “He inspired me. He really made me work – practice. It was like he was an adult and I was a baby. Compared to him everything I did was wrong.”

From 1951 to 1954 Curtis worked primarily with rhythm and blues bands; the Griffin Brothers, Ruth Brown (playing baritone sax,) Paul Williams and Ivory Joe Hunter. This period which familiarized him with the basic aspects of jazz was followed by two years of extensive “woodshedding.” He came to New York around Christmas of 1956 and played his first local gig with Charles Mingus at Birdland. Curtis is still an important member of the Mingus organization and it was with Mingus that he first began to play alto. Although his experience with this horn has been rather brief, he comes up with a sound that is his own, and not an imitation of Charlie Parker, of whom he says “I always admired Birds’s genius, but never wanted to play like him.” Curtis also has an original sound on tenor although he can perhaps be likened to Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray of the middle 194’0s and Charlie Rouse who is his favorite tenor man today.

Curtis lists as his other favorites; Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Mingus, Paul Chambers, Oscar Pettiford, Lucky Thompson, Elvin Jones, Dannie Richmond (the drummer with Mingus) and Sonny Rollins (“He fascinates me.”)

Bill Hardman is a “pre-Porter” Mingus alumnus who was born in Cleveland, April 6, 1932. He played trumpet in high school and later worked with Tiny Bradshaw. He joined Mingus in 1956 and has since gigged with Art Blakey‘s “Jazz Messengers” and Jackie McLean. His conception suggests this his major influences have been Miles Davis, Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown. He is a still growing soloist with a bright future ahead of him.

Sonny Clark is a constantly interesting and swinging pianist who was born in Pittsburgh on July 21, 1931. After a six year stay on the west coast (1951-57) working with the “Lighthouse All-Stars” among countless other “name” groups he decided to return east where he feels, and rightly so, that his style of playing is more at home.

Paul Chambers and Art Taylor are Blue Note “regulars” who have become, of late, what amounts to being the label’s “house” bassist and drummer. They are both more than worthy of this singular honor being among the very top exponents on their respective instruments. Paul has three of his own albums on Blue Note; BLP 1534, BLP 1546 and BLP 1569. The latter side also features Taylor.

On the first two tracks Curtis Porter plays alto, switching to tenor on the final three.

Side one begins with Porter’s Mighty Moe And Joe (“Moe” is bassist Ollie Mohammed and “Joe” is tenor Joe Alexander,) a swinger which Curtis says was inspired by Dizzy Gillespie’s recording of Tin Tin Daeo. After the oriental flavored theme, Curtis takes off on an intense, slashing flight and is followed by Hardman, whose swift statement leads into a smooth, well constructed stint by Hank. Sonny and Paul (bowed) have their say before the group returns to the theme and the fade-out close.

The standard, Falling In Love With Love, is taken at an easy, middle tempo. Bill (muted) leads off staying right on the melody line. Hank sandwiches the sensitive solos of Curtis and Sonny with two moving statements of his own.

Milt Jackson‘s Bag’s Groove has become a modern jazz standard and is for me one of the most appealing and provocative tunes ever written. Porter, Hardman, Clark, Mobley and Chambers solo in that order and all in a very blue fashion.

Mobley’s rousing Double Exposure, which opens the second side, is reminiscent of some of the “duels” Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon used to engage in. After Hardman’s crisp, biting solo, Hank and then Curtis come on with a pair of forceful statements. The difference between the two tenors is shown to good advantage here. Mobley has a hard, round sound and plays on shading and blows with a terse, clipped attack. His sound is softer in texture or more loose than Mobley’s, but has sharper edges. Clark makes a pertinent comment before Hank kicks off a set of exciting “chases” between the horns. A. T. also gets a change to stretch out before the end.

News is another Porter original with an engaging theme and effective solos by Hank, Bill Curtis, Sonny and Paul.

This recording has significance other than the fact that Hank Mobley, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor once again turn in fine performances. The Blue Note debut of Curtis Porter, Bill Hardman and Sonny Clark displays the talents of three relatively new musicians who should be able to provide many hours of enjoyable listening for a good many years to come.