This review is from: Soul Station (Audio CD)
There are many excellent Hank Mobley records, and thankfully Blue Note has been quite good about reissuing them on CD. "Soul Station," along with "Workout," is the most consistently satisfying.
The lineup tells you that you will be hearing a professional presentation of the music: Mobley, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums on a February 1960 recording date. Still, great lineups sometimes fail to deliver the intangibles that make for a great session. Not so here.
For me, the track that sums up the date best is "This I Dig of You," a medium-tempo take that is so relaxed it sounds effortless, but delivers unforced emotion and swing. Mobley delivers a sweetly lyrical line that Kelly comments on fluidly, and then Hank delivers a solo with his signature midregister, buttery tone. I admire him greatly because he was surrounded by other greats: Hawkins and Young before him; Coltrane, Gordon, Coleman as his contemporaries; and he cut his own ground.
There is nothing revolutionary here. It's honest, unadorned swinging using simple, effective melodies as the base. But it's like saying "Over the Rainbow" is a simple tune. The genius of these musicians is to take the middle ground material and turn it into personal, deeply felt statements that you can sing, dance to, and just kick back and enjoy, from the deep groove of "Dig Dis" to the Latin rhythms of "Split Feelin's" to the blues of "Soul Station" to the heartfelt "If I Should Lose You." The nearly perfect fusion of this quartet comes through on each of these tunes.
Mobley may slip past you if you are dipping into the archives of the great Blue Note recordings, but don't let that happen for long.
This review is from: Soul Station (Audio CD)
The greatest jazz album ever? Such a pronouncement is always an exercise in futility, but a strong argument could certainly be for "Soul Station." I can think of several more celebrated and popular jazz albums, none of which I'll name here, that offer far less in terms of stylistic breadth and sheer thrills. One thing's for sure: you will not find 40 minutes of more entertaining jazz listening than this.
Mobely's writing is a marvel, so much so that I think the oft-used term "blowing session" is misleading in relation to this album, which would be more accurately discribed as a major work of art, unimpeachable in its aesthetic virtues. "This I Dig of You" is a hard bop staple, and for very good reason; the melody is addictive, its swing so convincing as to feel inexorable. And, as if that weren't enough, Art Blakey therein knocks out one of the coolest drum solos you'll ever hear. It's all dazzling, but more importantly, it's a lot of fun. If you've got friends who think jazz is just music that pseudo-intellectual trendoids use as some sort badge of hipness, please steer them straight to this album for evidence to the contrary. It's replete with the power of conversion.
One could extoll this disc's virtues ad infinitum, though superlatives would quickly be exhausted in the act. Suffice it to say that a five star rating barely does it justice. It is one of those truly rare, perfect things. Buy it or suffer the consequences of its absence in your life, which are not inconsequential.
This review is from: Soul Station (Audio CD)
This was one of Hank Mobley's finest albums. The others would have to be No Room For Squares, Workout, Roll Coll, and Straight, No Filter. But this one is absolutely tremendous! Mobley was curtainly on top of his game with this one and so were the musicians he chose. Pianist Wynton Kelly, hadn't been too well known at the time of this album, but swang beautifully. Paul Chambers, who played on practically every modern jazz date in the mid and late 1950's, including All four Miles Davis Quintet albums, John Coltrane's Blue Train, Sonny Rollin's Tenor Madness, Sonny Clark's Cool Struttin, Kenny Dorham's Whistle Stop, and many many more, also shines here. Blakey, always fine, delivers fine sharp/tight solos as well as clean/musical swinging. The first song, Remember is outstanding. It definetly sounds more like a Hank Mobley composition than an old 1920's standard. The others are all good. One other thing I admire about Mobley besides his playing is his titles of his compositions, especially, Dig Dis. This is Mobley's tightest session out there. It's also a classic. This album is just another fine album produced by Blue Note.
