Billboard : 01/19/1957
Score of 78

Mobley’s long-lined offerings in the framework of the Jazz Messengers are now well-known to all aficionados of the more advanced wing of modern jazz. He is still growing; he shows greater technical facility than ever, and also seems here to offer more emotional content in his playing than before. Most important, he is moving out of the Sonny Rollins mold and is achieving a sound more identifiably his own. The session here is a pretty frantic one; most of the numbers are by the quintet, in which Donald Byrd blows the other horn, usually in hard bop style. Jackie McLean’s alto is heard in the sextet selection, Au Privave, and makes for a fine demo band.

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Jazz Monthly (UK)
Albert McCarthy : 11/1957

The message imparted by Hank Mobley and his colleagues will not be new to those readers who have a genuine interest in jazz. We appear to be in the throes of a modernist-revival if we are to take this record as typical of the current American output. Conveniently grouped on this session are most of what might be termed the new Angry Young Men of jazz. Mobley, Byrd, McLean, Taylor etc. seem fiercely determined to interpret literally the teachings of Charlie Parker and to keep alive the spirit of the ten-year-old Parker Quintet formula. Precisely what their ultimate goal will be is difficult to discover; perhaps they are more concerned with the means than the end. The very nature of half the material here (Bud, Fifty-Second Street and Au Privave) gives some idea of their dedicated intention to place their feet very firmly in the footsteps of Parker, Fats Navarro etc.

Mobley and Byrd are capable soloists in the unfortunate position of being recorded too often and too early in life. Neither is yet capable of sustaining any real interest over more than one or two choruses; neither has yet developed a readily identifiable sound or personality. Byrd is a fleet technician who will undoubtedly become a more impressive soloist when he has improved his still-small tone and realised that eight notes are not necessarily better than one. Mobley shows promise as a lyrical performer on Little girl blue and, in general, has improved since his earlier recordings with Gillespie and the Jazz Messengers. Harris (described accurately by Ira Gitler as being like Bud Powell but with a lighter touch) and Watkins are the most consistent of the six. Taylor drives hard but should concentrate first on trying to keep good time rather than to imitate Art Blakey; listen to the way he surges ahead at the beginning of the piano solo on Disturbance for proof. It is fortunate that McLean plays on only one track, for he is in singularly poor form. Anyone who maintains that this incoherent solo, played with an appalling tone and bad intonation, is good jazz alto needs to re-examine his critical standards. Current is a theme-less work-out on the chords of Strike up the band.

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Metronome
Jack Maher : February, 1957

The Mobley message comes through with all the solidity of the bop of today. Hank happens to be one of the less ferocious of the tenormen from that area of jazz. He seems to bite and chomp off his notes less, and has a smoothness to his line. There’s the essence of a warmth to his ballads too, as he demonstrates on Little Girl Blue. Prestige blowing mate Don Byrd is on hand sounding fuller and more confident than he has of late. Pianist Barry Harris, who plays along Hank Jones’ lines, a soft, subtle yet swinging line contributes good choruses, and the rhythm section of Doug Watkins (bass) and Art Taylor (drums) do their particular type of accompanying well. 52nd Street seems too fast for everybody concerned to do anything but noodle. Jackie McLean expands the quintet to six on Au Privave but seems tired and bored.

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San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA)
Ralph J. Gleason : 02/05/1957
Jazz on the East Coast is Swinging to Swing

There has been so much discussion of West Coast jazz in the past couple of years that one might think it is the only sort of music played by our young modern jazz men.

So just as an antidote to an overdose of West Coast, it seemd a good idea to round up a few of the better examples of the Eastern jazz offerings and discuss them here.

The basic element in all East Coast sessions these days is a determined return to the beat. You can hear this in the Prestige LP Mobley’s Message, in which tenor man Hank Mobley runs through six tunes with a small group. The turmoil the rhythm section sets up and the close-to-the-beat driving swing are perfect examples of the current hard-swinging style in New York.

The return to positivism in swinging is ambivalent, however. On the one hand there are the hard swingers, such as Mobley, and on the other there are the men who want merely to return to the warm swing style of Basie. A good example of the latter is the Paul Quinichette LP on Dawn in which Quinichette, with eight men from Basie’s band and Nat Piece on piano, produces one of the most pleasant sessions imaginable. Every moment of it is pure middle-of-the-road swing with riffs and solos and a good, warm feeling.

There is also a definite drive towards intellectualism – a sort of Eastern counterpart to some of the Los Angeles activities. Bob Brookmeyer, a superlative trombonist, gives a good example of this sort of thing, in which the arranger is as important as the soloist, in his new Vik album. He plays with three groups of varying sizes and instrumentation and the result is an intriguing blend of direct and controlled emotional response.

Paul Chambers, the young bassist currently at the Black Hawk with the Miles Davis group, is the idol of young bass men today. You can hear his amazing technique, inventiveness and swing in a fine Blue Note LP called Whims of Chambers. He plays with a sextet which includes two of his fellow bandsmen from the Davis group, John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones. Horace Silver, who is beginning to establish himself as the leader of the young pianists, plays very well on this album. Here again we have the robust, almost elemental drive of the Easterners.

There’s another aspect of Eastern jazz, the small Count Basie-oriented group of which Opus in Swing on Savoy is a good example. It contains five numbers played by Frank Wess on flute, Kenny Burrell on guitar and aided by a Basie-style rhythm section without a piano, if you can imagine such a thing. The emphasis is on soft and soothing swing and it is quite pleasant. This is Eastern jazz in some of its more usual aspects.

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Down Beat : 01/09/1957
Nat Hentoff : 3.5 stars

Tracks 1-3 and 6 have Donald Byrd, Doug Watkins, Barry Harris, and Art Taylor along with Mobley. Hank is the only horn on Biue, and Jackie McLean makes a front line of three on Privave. This is a hot, intense session, except for the slow, romantic Blue which contains the most sensitive Mobley I’ve yet heard on records.

Mobley throughout, as a matter of fact, indicates considerable improvement (or perhaps I’m just beginning to get his message). His work has increased authority; and in places, growing individuality of conception. Byrd, whose first appearances on records were marked especially by lyricism, is harder and more on the attack here. He is emotionally effective, but often calls to mind the advice suggested for another modern hornman: “Settle down – wait a minute – wait a minute.”

Byrd, in short, has yet to create enough inner confidence so that he can relax into a groove, play fewer notes, and have each one count with powerful ease. The rhythm section is strong, and Detroit pianist Harris plays with a beautiful touch and fluid ideas. McLean is an eloquent guest in Privave.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

Many of you are familiar with the long-lined tenor offerings of Hank Mobley through his work with the Jazz Messengers. It was during his tenure with that group that he really came into his own. Prior to that he had been with several groups including Max Roach’s intermittently during the 1951-3 period, Dizzy Gillespie’s for most of 1954 and late in that year the Horace Silver group which grew into the Messengers.

Born in Eastman, Georgia, in 1930, but raised in New Jersey, Hank made a small name for himself around the Newark area in the Garden State. After a stint with Paul Gayten’s r&b band in 1950 he was formally introduced to a wider jazz audience with the Roach quartet. That he was following in the Charlie Parker tradition was evident, and he had also been touched by Sonny Rollins. To these influences however, he brought a personal feeling and identifiable sound both of which have been further crystallized in the years that have followed. The Parker lineage is still unmistakable but is more general than specific and the occasional references to Rollins are now no more than tips of the hat.

Hank’s sound is a distinctive one which serves well the emotional content and rhythmic bent of his ideas. Its texture is more like a pulling in than a blowing out and once prompted me to write after hearing him at a club, “He sounded as if he was inhaling notes from the field between the microphone and the bell of his horn and transmitting them through the loudspeaker at our left by means of a magnetic reed”.

Mobley’s message is delivered in three different size envelopes. Four are by the quintet in which Hank is helped by telegrapher Donald Byrd and his “sending” trumpet. They disseminate the information of two dictums from bop’s palmy days, Bud Powell’s Bouncin’ With Bud and Thelonious Monk’s 52nd Street Theme plus two more personal statements, Hank’s Minor Disturbance and the group’s Alternating Current.

For Charlie Parker’s blues, Au Privave, the group becomes a sextet with the addition of the young herald of the alto sax, Jackie McLean.

Hank is the sole horn on Little Girl Blue.

Helping in all departments throughout are the everswinging duo of Art Taylor and Doug Watkins, joined here by another in the illustrious line of emigres from Detroit, pianist Barry Harris. Extremely reminiscent of the Bud Powell of a bygone decade but with a lighter touch, Barry shines, like the young star that he is, all over this record, thereby fully illuminating all messages.