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Hank Mobley – Mobley’s Message - (Mono)

Analogue Productions - 33rpm - 200g

LP Condition:  SEALED  

#Grading System:  SEALED/ M- / VG++ / VG+ / VG / VG- / G#

For sale individually and as part of Analogue Productions’ Prestige Mono Series

Cut from the analogue masters by renowned mastering engineer Kevin Gray

200-gram pressing by Quality Record Pressings has a flat edge profile and deep groove label, true to the original LP

Deluxe high-gloss tip-on album jacket

"Analogue Productions has continued to push its own already high bar higher still. Its Quality Record Pressings plant is delivering the best vinyl discs to be found, its jackets and cover reproduction quality have hit new levels, and it continues to have the best in the biz — such as Kevin Gray for this series (25 mono LPs from the Prestige label's exceptional late-50s run)cut lacquers from original analog master tapes.... The set crackles with energy and the sound are rather cool, yet it's very clean and — like looking through a mountain stream — transparent. I also have AP's 2002 45 RPM set, and this new release makes that one sound a bit thick and veiled by comparison." — Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound, December 2015

"...hard-bop devotees shouldn't overlook Mobley's Message, especially when they can savor this superb vinyl reissue." Sonics = 5/5; Music = 3.5/5 — Duck Baker, The Absolute Sound, October 2013

Critic Leonard Feather asserted that Hank Mobley was “the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone,” meaning that his tone wasn’t as aggressive and thick as John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins, but neither was it as soft and cool as Stan Getz or Lester Young. Mobley helped inaugurate the hard bop movement: Jazz that balanced sophistication and soulfulness, complexity and earthy swing, and whose loose structure allowed for extended improvisations.

 Born in Eastman, Georgia, in 1930, but raised in New Jersey, Hank’s long-lined tenor offerings became a staple for pianist Horace Silver’s group, which evolved into the ‘50s super quintet co-led by Art Blakley, dubbed the Jazz Messengers. Their groundbreaking first album for Blue Note, 1955’s Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, was a hard bop landmark, featuring sophisticated solos and bright, almost funky rhythms. Mobley hit his peak in the first half of the 1960s with hard bop cornerstones like Soul Station, No Room for Squares, and A Caddy for Daddy.

On this Prestige offering, Mobley delivers his signature swinging style in three different variations. Four numbers are by the quintet in which Hank is helped by telegrapher Donald Byrd and his “sending” trumpet. They disseminate the information of two pronouncements from bop’s palmy days, Bud Powell’s “Bouncin’ With Bud” and Thelonious Monk’s “52nd Street Theme,” plus two more numbers, 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 a young turk of the alto sax, Jackie McLean.

Hank is the sole horn on “Little Girl Blue.”

Originally released in 1956

Donald Byrd, trumpet
Barry Harris, piano
Jackie McLean, alto Sax
Hank Mobley, composer, tenor sax
Art Taylor, drums
Doug Watkins, bass

Track list:

1. Bouncin’ With Bud

2. 52nd Street

3. Au Privave

4. Minor Disturbance

5. Little Girl Blue

6. Alternating Current

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