Cashbox : 12/26/1959

This is a good album. A free-wheeling session in which everyone cooks up a storm, ensemble-wise and especially on the solos. Mobley and Morgan are driven by a vigorous rhythm section – Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Charlie Persip (a vastly neglected and underrated drummer who can adapt himself to many jazz climates). Selections include High and Flighty, Speak Low and Stretchin’ Out.

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Down Beat : 02/18/1960
Don DeMichael : 3.5 stars

This release raises a question in my mind: Are we becoming so saturated with good jazz that it takes something really outstanding to move us? This LP Is better than good, but there is little to distinguish it from a score of other better-than-average blowing albums. It seems as if everybody concerned has been through this neck of the woods before; and there’s really nothing new under the sun anyway. A few lines are set to give the date some semblance of form, and the rest is blowing.

This is not to say that this is a boring or uninteresting collection; on the contrary, the solos and a couple of the compositions are praiseworthy. The danger is that modern jazz is running the risk of killing itself by overexposure of the competent and saturation without differentiation. As the level of the average is raised, it becomes very more difficult to reach the outstanding point. How many five-star LPs have you heard lately?

As is usual when he is involved in a date, Morgan provides the most rewarding listening. I’m beginning to run out of words to describe adequately this consistently brilliant trumpet man: pixieish, fiery, humorous, booting, kicking – take your choice. Morgan is possibly the best thing to happen to jazz since prohibition.

Mobley also has some fine moments on each track. His heavy-toned, very masculine tenor romps on Git-Go and Flighty. He penned the four originals; Flighty and the boppish Peckin’ Time may have more lasting value than most originals making the rounds today.

The Kelly–Chambers–Persip triumvirate shucks heatedly, and each has a turn at the solo mike. Kelly’s solo on Stretchin’ Out is excellent even for him. Chambers is not up to par on this solo space but is rocklike in section. Judging by his swinging work on this album, it would be nice to see Persip’s name on more LPs; his solo on Stretchin’ Out is sparkling.

All in all, this is a happy, swinging album.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

Did you ever play word association games with yourself? I don’t mean a conscious setting out to play them but just a falling into a thought suggestion pattern in a quasi-inadvertent way when a given word pops into your mind. Since, as a writer, I’ve got a mind that likes to bounce words around, this game is a fairly frequent visitor to the playing field inside my skull. The word Mobley, as in Hank Mobley, races across my brain and stops first at another Mobley, “Doc” Mobley. This football stalwart, whose real first name, I believe, was Rudy, set a new, national recording for ground gaining (since broken) in 1942 while playing for Hardin-Simmons (Abilene, Texas). The next word I see is Moberly, a city in Missouri where I heard Woody Herman‘s “Four Brothers” band on a one-nighter in the fall of 1948. Then I see mobility. Now I don’t know where “Doc” Mobley digs Hank Mobley or if anyone in Moberly, MO listens to Moberly’s records (phonograph not ground gaining) but mobility is one of the chief assets of Hank’s saxophone style.

Even in 1952, when Max Roach brought him across the Hudson from Newark, New Jersey to play with his quartet at Le Downbeat, Hank exhibited a facility, dexterity, yet mobility, which, although he hadn’t learned to control consistently for his own best ends, was a marker toward an accomplished future. With Roach, and later with Dizzy Gillespie‘s quintet, Hank started to polish his work. His sound, neither hard nor soft but round, firm and fully attacked, also went under the buffing wheel and by the time he joined Art Blakey‘s Messengers in 1955, he had reached a major plateau in his development. Listen to Blue Note BLP 1507, BLP 1508, The Jazz Messengers At The Café Bohemia, and you will hear what I mean.

The period from 1956 to 1958, in which Hank appeared with Horace Silver‘s offshoot of the Messengers and Max Roach’s combo, is also well documented on Blue Note. Six Pieces of Silver (BLP 1539) and The Stylings Of Silver (BLP 1562) both contain superior Mobley; Hank’s own albums, BLP 1540, BLP 1544, BLP 1550 and BLP 1560 were among 1957’s best releases. It wasn’t until 1957 that his several critics, and there had been many, began to realize his stature; that Hank’s was a recognizable, attractive and authoritative tenor voice.

The extremely youthful trumpeter, Lee Morgan, who upset quite a few people with his fiery playing in Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra and on the numerous LP grooves allotted to him by Blue Note in 1957, teams with Hank here as he did on Hank Mobley Sextet (BLP 1540) and Lee Morgan Sextet (BLP 1541). Lee’s sure-fingered, brilliant-toned, straightforward blowing in the Navarro–Clifford Brown vein, belies his years. As Nat Hentoff once put it, “Although many-noted, he (Lee) blows with less of the rhetorical flash that one might expect from a comer his age…”

Wynton Kelly, a Gillespie teammate of Morgan’s, when the band was still alive, is another in the line of fine young musicians who were given their start by the Blue Note label. This was back in the days of ten-inch LPs. Remember them? Wynton played with Lester Young, Gillespie and Dinah Washington prior to Army service. Since returning to civilian life in 1954, he has been with Art Farmer and Gigi Gryce in addition to the Gillespie orchestra. Kelly’s favorites are Tatum, Powell, and Monk. He brings a very personal interpretation of the Powell idiom to the keyboard with him. With Hank and Lee, he can be heard in Johnny Griffin‘s A Blowing Session (BLP 1559).

The remainder of the rhythm section was heard as a unit in the aforementioned Mobley-Morgan sextet LPs.

Charlie Persip was another Gillespie bandsman in the 1953-1957 period. Early in 1958, he appeared with Phil Woods at the Five Spot. Charlie is equally adept at big band and combo drumming. Currently he is furthering his musical education at Julliard.

Paul Chambers, heard on many Blue Note LPs including Paul Chambers Sextet (BLP 1534) and Bass On Top (BLP 1569) is, of course, the bassist with Miles Davis‘ group and one of its very important cogs. Rarely has a young musician risen so swiftly to the top of his division as has Chambers in the last three years. The talent that got him there will keep him there.

In the course of the playing of the five tunes, four of which were penned by Mobley, there is plenty of room for the soloists to walk around in.

High And Flighty is swift and swinging. Mobley, Morgan and Kelly are as articulate as they are rapid. After the three solo, Mobley and Morgan trade “fours” with Persip.

Lee and Hank split the opening melody chorus of Speak Low which is backed by Latin rhythm, except in the bridge. The solos, by Hank, Wynton and Lee, are in 4/4. An improvised bridge by Hank leads back into a final melody statement by Lee.

The title number, Peckin’ Time, is reminiscent of bop’s late Forties period. The abrupt little stops in the theme are especially ear catching. Kelly starts the soloing and Mobley takes it up with a charismatic long-lined, double-timed offering. Morgan’s part is tight and precise; the notes seem to cascade from his horn. After Chambers picks a chorus, Hank and Lee divide one before it’s time to peck again.

Stretchin’ Out is a brisk workout in which everyone follows the lead of the title. After opening solos by Lee, Wynton and Hank, the leader and Persip trade “fours” and then Charlie takes his only solo of the set. Lee and Hank each have two separate solo statements before the close.

The loosely, cruising Git-Go Blues is last. The rhythm section supplies the git and the soloists go, at length, in the following order: Mobley, Morgan, Kelly, Chambers, and Hank again (short one).

Although Git-Go has no connection with my name, I can take a hint, via word association, and go, leaving fine enjoyment of the music to you.