Hank Mobley - Thinking Of Home

[Gentle Giant]

Hank Mobley is like Roger Maris, always saddled with an asterisk. People say he's good but not as good as.... His bad luck was to play at the same time and in the same bands as other greats, but Hank needn't take a back seat to anybody. His playing on Thinking Of Home is about as good as it gets. Someone else could do some honking and squealing, or lay some sheets of sound, or go off into the stratosphere, but what Hank does on these five tunes is simply play great. And what more could anyone ask for or want?

The lineup:
Hank - tenor
Woody Shaw - trumpet
Eddie Diehl - guitar
Cedar Walton - piano
Mickey Bass - bass
Leroy Williams - drums

Recorded July 31, 1970

Most impressively for a supposed "B" talent, Hank composed all the tunes except one. The album kicks off with an ambitious 10-minute suite that includes the title track, along with two other sections that span from a soulful mellowness to fiery exhortation to bossa nova. Everyone shines on this, especially my main man Cedar Walton.

That's followed up by the 13-minute Justine, which swings like mad and shows off what great tone and expressiveness Hank had. He and Woody do some nice unison work on the head on this, and then get into a fiery battle on You Gotta Hit It, which is worth the price of admission by itself (actually that's not relevant, since I borrowed this from the library).

Anyway, this is a great album from a great tenor man. The album cover shows him holding a reed in his thumb and index finger, while he appears to be nervously chewing on his middle finger. It's a picture that seems to show a man who hasn't gotten his well-deserved props. I hope history changes that.

[shrugs]

Great recording. I have the LT series lp from the early 80's. I am gonna pull it out this week.
Hank was the man.

[Nate Dorward]

Hank Mobley's a fine player; I suspect that his star is fairly low because (1) Blue Note has been lax on keeping his work in print; for instance Roll Call, one of his best discs, was unavailable for years until it was finally put out in the RVG series; (2) he wasn't active as a player for many years before his death.

[Tanager]

For lots of great Mobley work, check out some of Kenny Dorham's sides. I was inspired by this thread to pull out a bunch, as well as some Blakey sides with one or both of 'em, and sit listening to 'em for an afternoon. A damned fine way to spend some time, if I do say so.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

This review got me to spin this CD a few more times the other day. Eh... it still ranks way down my list of Mobley-led dates. Probably only "The Flip" would get a lower rank. However, it's still Hank Mobley, which has always been "enough said" in my book.

I think what bothers me it that I just don't dig the tone Mobley was getting out of his horn at this time of his career. It sounds pinched and he chops the notes a lot... trying to get "harder" maybe or is he just running out of breath? It sounds like he's running out of breath and sometimes you hear that moan between notes, almost like he had can't hold the last note so he sings it. Everything I've read says that by this time, Mobley had many lung problems. I think it sounds like it but I'll be the first to chalk it up to my own imagination.

I will say that the compositions are very good but the suite doesn't sound like "Mobley", it sounds odd coming from his pen. "Justine" is a beaut. I sometimes found myself skipping the suite and jumping right to "Justine".

I remember a while back where Eddie Diehl asked me if Michael Cuscuna could check the vaults for another date he did with Mobley that he is claiming is still unissued. I wonder if Eddie is still alive... he was living in the Poughkeepsie area when I lived there 4 years ago. Anyway, Michael looked into it and he figures Eddie must have been thinking of "Thinking Of Home". When I got the word to Diehl, it made me wonder if he ever got a penny from this date since he never even knew it got out on LP in the 80s. BTW, Eddie's playing was OK on here. It reminded me of Pat Matino during his Prestige days.

Later,
Kevin