Hank Mobley - Peckin' Time
Released - November 1959
Recording and Session Information
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Charlie Persip, drums.
tk.5 Stretchin' Out
tk.6 Peckin' Time
tk.10 Git-Go Blues
tk.11 Speak Low (Nash, Weill)
Session Photos
Photos: Francis Wolff
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| High and Flighty | Hank Mobley | 09/02/1958 |
| Speak Low | Ogden Nash, Kurt Weill | 09/02/1958 |
| Peckin' Time | Hank Mobley | 09/02/1958 |
| Side Two | ||
| Stretchin' Out | Hank Mobley | 09/02/1958 |
| Git-Go Blues | Hank Mobley | 09/02/1958 |
Credits
| Cover Photo: | |
| Cover Design: | |
| Engineer: | RUDY VAN GELDER |
| Producer: | ALFRED LION |
| Liner Notes: | IRA GITLER |
Liner Notes
DID YOU ever play word association games with yourself? I don't mean a conscious setting out to play them but just a falling into to a thought suggestion pattern in a quasi-inadvertent way when a given word pops into your mind. Since, as a writer, I've got a mind that likes to bounce words around, this game is a fairly frequent visitor to the playing field inside my skull. The word Mobley, as in Hank Mobley, races across my brain and stops first at another Mobley, "Doc" Mobley. This football stalwart, whose real first name, I believe, was Rudy, set a new, national record for ground gaining (since broken) in 1942 while playing for Hardin-Simmons (Abilene. Texas). The next word I see is Moberly, a city in Missouri where I heard Woody Herman's "Four Brothers" band on a one-nighter in the fall of 1948. Then I see mobility. Now I don't know whether "'Doc" Mobley digs Hank Mobley or if anyone in Moberly, MO. listens to Mobley's records (phonograph not ground gaining) but mobility is one of the chief assets Of Hank's saxophone style.
Even in 1952, when Max Roach brought him across the Hudson from Newark, New Jersey to play with his quartet at Le Downbeat, Hank exhibited a facility, dexterity, yes mobility, which, although he hadn't learned to control consistently for his own best ends, was a marker toward an accomplished future. With Roach, and later with Dizzy Gillespie's quintet, Hank started to polish his work. His sound, neither hard nor soft but round, firm and fully attacked, also went under the buffing wheel and by the time he joined Art Blakey's Messengers in 1955, he had reached a major plateau in his development. Listen to Blue Note BLP 1507, BLP 1508, The Jazz Messengers At The Cafe Bohemia, and you will hear what I mean.
The period from 1956 to 1958, in which Hank appeared with Horace Silver's offshoot of the Messengers and Max Roach's combo, is also well documented on Blue Note. Six Pieces Of Silver (BLP 1539) and The Stylings Of Silver (BLP 1562) both contain superior Mobley; Hank's own albums, BLP 1540, BLP 1544, BLP 1550 and BLP 1560 were among 1957's best releases. It wasn't until 1957 that his severest critics, and there had been many, began to realize his stature; that Hank's was a recognizable, attractive and authoritative tenor voice.
The extremely youthful trumpeter, Lee Morgan, who upset quite a few people with his fiery playing in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra and on the numerous LP grooves allotted to him by Blue Note in 1957, teams with Hank here as he did on Hank Mobley Sextet (BLP 1540) and Lee Morgan Sextet (BLP 1541). Lee's sure-fingered, brilliant-toned, straightforward blowing, in the Navarro-Clifford Brown vein, belies his years. As Nat Hentoff once put it, "Although many-noted, he (Lee) blows With less of the rhetorical flash that one might expect from a comer his age..."
Wynton Kelly, a Gillespie team-mate of Morgan's, when the band was still alive, is another in the line of fine young musicians who were given their start by the Blue Note label. This was back in the days of ten-inch LPs. Remember them? Wynton played with Lester Young, Gillespie and Dinah Washington prior to Army service. Since returning to civilian life in 1954, he has been with Art Farmer and Gigi Gryce in addition to the Gillespie orchestra. Kelly's favorites are Tatum, Powell and Monk. He brings a very personal interpretation of the Powell idiom to the keyboard with him. With Hank and Lee, he can be heard in Johnny Griffin's A Blowing Session (BLP 1559).
The remainder of the rhythm section was heard as a unit in the aforementioned Mobley-Morgan sextet LPs.
Charlie Persip was another Gillespie bandsman in the 1953-1957 period. Early in 1958, he appeared with Phil Woods at the Five Spot. Charlie is equally adept at big band and combo drumming. Currently he is furthering his musical education at Juilliard.
Paul Chambers, heard on many Blue Note LPs, including Paul Chambers Sextet (BLP 1534) and Bass On Top (BLP 1569), is, of course, the bassist with Miles Davis' group and one of its very important cogs. Rarely has a young musician risen so swiftly to the top of his division as has Chambers in the last three years. The talent that got him there will keep him there.
In the course of the playing Of the five tunes, four of which were penned by Mobley, there is plenty of room for the soloists to walk around in.
High And Flighty is swift and swinging. Mobley, Morgan and Kelly are as articulate as they are rapid. After the three solo, Mobley and Morgan trade "fours" with Persip.
Lee and Hank split the opening melody chorus of Speak Low which is backed by Latin rhythm, except in the bridge. The solos, by Hank, Wynton and Lee, are in 4/4. An improvised bridge by Hank leads back into a final melody statement by Lee.
The title number, Peckin' Time, is reminiscent of bop's late Forties period. The abrupt little stops in the theme are especially ear catching. Kelly starts the soloing and Mobley takes it up with a characteristic long-lined, double-timed offering. Morgan's part is tight and precise; the notes seem to cascade from his horn. After Chambers picks a chorus, Hank and Lee divide one before it's time to peck again.
Stretchin' Out is a brisk workout in which everyone follows the lead of the title. After opening solos by Lee, Wynton and Hank, the leader and Persip trade "fours" and then Charlie takes his only solo of the set. Lee and Hank each have two separate solo statements before the close.
The loosely, cruising Git-Go Blues is last. The rhythm section supplies the git and the soloists go, at length, in the following order: Mobley, Morgan, Kelly, Chambers and Hank again (short one).
Although Git-Go has no connection with my name, I can take a hint, via word association, and go, leaving the enjoyment of the music to you.
—IRA GITLER
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes
A NEW LOOK AT PECKIN' TIME
The lettering on the briefcase in the cover photo for this album, as well as the credits on the back liner of the original LP, might lead some to conclude that Lee Morgan is a co-leader here, an impression furthered by the presence of Wynton Kelly and Charlie Persip, two musicians who had spent the previous year plus with the trumpeter in Dizzy Gillespie's big band. Yet as Ira Gitler's liner notes (not to mention the composer credits) make clear, this was a Hank Mobley session, the last of a prolific run that began with the saxophonist's first 10" on Blue Note in 1955, wandered to Savoy and Prestige for several dates in 1956, and had produced four previous Blue Note albums (with two more in the can) in the space of 14 months.
Several of these studio visits, including a pair on Savoy as well as those cited by Gitler, launched the recording career of wunderkind Morgan, although the teenager's collaboration with Mobley took a hiatus during much of 1957. Their temporary reunion here was well timed, as Morgan had become a more fully formed personality during his tenure With the Gillespie big band, where a year of work allowed him to grow extremely comfortable blowing over the support of Kelly and Persip. Mobley had Gillespie connections as well. dating back to the 1954 Gillespie quintet that also included Persip on drums. Paul Chambers never worked or recorded with Gillespie, yet had spent the previous two years demonstrating that he was compatible With just about anyone. All of this led the present quintet to create a unity well beyond that heard in many pick-up groups of the period, a unity underscored by the consistency of performance among the three pieces heard in alternate takes.
The alternate "High and Flighty" was the first title recorded at the session, and is taken at a slightly slower groove than the master that immediately followed. Morgan and especially Kelly sound more reserved in their solos, and the alternate has less of a flag-waving quality, which may explain why producer Alfred Lion ultimately settled on the second take to open the album.
"Stretchin' Out" was dealt with next, with what became the alternate take, again recorded prior to the master. Here, the overall performance is significantly shorter, and the pedal point figure less securely rendered during the theme chorus. The solos, on the other hand, are quite good, if a cut below those on the master take. Fortunately, the original LP was able to accommodate the additional two and a half minutes of the master.
"Speak Low" closed the session, and in this instance what became the master preceded the alternate. With the playing time of the two performances virtually identical, the first may have been chosen for original issue due to better solos from Mobley and especially Morgan. Yet the alternate has its charms, including a more relaxed and satisfying solo from Kelly and a greater presence for Chambers's vamp figures on the theme choruses. As time passed, jazz musicians tended to spin Kurt Weill's standard more ironically by playing "Speak Low" hard, fast, and straight-ahead, while Mobley retains the Latin melody/swing release format also heard on Sonny Clark's great version, cut five months earlier with Chambers and John Coltrane among the sidemen (on Sonny's Crib).
A word might also be said about "Peckin' Tlme," since the little stops in the melody create morsels tar more substantial than those produced by the so-called pecking effect Donald Byrd and Jackie McLean employed while members of the George Wallington Quintet, as heard on that band's theme "The Peck."
Mobley would not return to Rudy Van Gelder's or to any other studio as a bandleader for two years. (He is often credited in discographies as front man for the live April 1958 sessions that produced the Roulette albums Monday Night at Bjrd!and.) In the intervening period. Mobley and Morgan reunited briefly in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, while Kelly joined Chambers as a regular member of the Miles Davis band. Mobley became a member of the Davis unit in time as well, but not before he, Kelly, and Chambers had recorded two masterpieces, Soul Station and Roll Call, albums that heralded Mobley's second and greatest Blue Note period.
— Bob Blumenthal, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment