Why any critic would think that
Hank Mobley
was at the end of his creative spark in 1963 -- a commonly if stupidly held view among the eggheads who do this for a living -- is ridiculous, as this fine session proves. By 1963,
Mobley
had undergone a transformation of tone. Replacing the scintillating airiness of his late-'50s sides was a harder, more strident, almost honking one, due in part to the influence of
John Coltrane
and in part to
's deeper concentration on the expressing
blues
feeling in his trademark
hard bop
tunes. The CD version of this album sets the record straight, dropping some tunes form a session months earlier and replacing them with alternate takes of the title cut and
"Carolyn"
for historical integrity, as well as adding
"Syrup and Biscuits"
and
"Comin' Back."
assembled a crack band for this
-drenched hard-rollicking set made up of material written by either him or trumpeter
Lee Morgan
. Other members of the ensemble were pianist
Andrew Hill
, drummer
Philly Joe Jones
, and bassist
John Ore
. The title track, which opens the set, is a stand-in metaphor for the rest:
's strong and knotty off-minor front-line trading fours with
Hill
that moves into brief but aggressive soloing for he and
Morgan
and brings the melody back, altered with the changes from
. On
's
"Me 'n' You,"
an aggressive but short bluesed-out vamp backed by a mutated
samba
beat, comes right out of the
Art Blakey
book of the
and is articulated wonderfully by
's solo, which alternates between short, clipped phrases along the line of the changes and longer trill and ostinatos where the end of a musical line is dictated by his breath rather than a chord change.
is in the pocket of the blue shades, coloring the ends of his lines with trills and short staccato bursts, warping them in
's open, chromatic voicings. All eight cuts here move with similar fluidity and offer a very gritty and realist approach to the roots of
. Highly recommended. ~ Thom Jurek