BLP 4149

Hank Mobley - No Room for Squares

Released - May 1964

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, March 7, 1963
Donald Byrd, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Herbie Hancock, piano; Butch Warren, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.4 Old World, New Imports
tk.7 Up A Step

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 2, 1963
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Andrew Hill, piano; John Ore, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.2 No Room For Squares
tk.8 Three Way Split
tk.17 Me 'N You
tk.22 Carolyn

Session Photos

Photos: © Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Three Way Split	Hank Mobley	02 October 1963
Carolyn	Lee Morgan	02 October 1963
Up a Step	Hank Mobley	07 March 1963
Side Two
No Room for Squares	Hank Mobley	02 October 1963
Me 'N You	Lee Morgan	02 October 1963
Old World, New Imports	Hank Mobley	07 March 1963

Liner Notes

THIS record is in some ways unique, for it features three horn players who hove been quietly perfecting their work while critical attention has been focussed elsewhere. Hank Mobley’s career has been the most unusual of the three. He is, in at least one sense of the term, a musician’s musician, for he has always been more highly regarded by other players than either critics or fans. Three of the men who have done most to shape the course of post-Parker jazz on the East coast hove been Art Blakey, Max Roach and Miles Davis, all of whom have, at one time, featured Mobley’s tenor in their groups. I think that the Davis tenure was particularly beneficial to Mobley, as it has proved to be for many other musicians. Since that time, I hear a greater order, economy and authority in his work, so that it now becomes much easier to understand the respect his colleagues have had for him all these years.

Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd, who alternate on trumpet in this album, hove had a far different history. They were both, at one time, walking definitions of the expression, "hot-shot young trumpet player." Morgan was unique in that he came to prominence in the band of one of the greatest of all trumpet players, Dizzy Gillespie, who was extremely generous to his protege, going so far as to give him the Night In Tunisia solo. Byrd was hailed early in his career, probably before all that praise was really justified. Like Morgan, he ceased to be mentioned after a time. But Byrd’s new maturity and mastery of his instrument is now a matter of established fact, and after the release of this record, Morgan’s should be, too.

All three of these men have, of course, worked for Art Blakey, and it is that mutual association which accounts for much of the cohesiveness of the album. It would not be going too for to associate the style of music played here with Blue Note Records. Since the time of the Blakey-Silver Messengers, a great majority of the records Blue Note has produced have been concerned with further ramifications and modifications of the aims and style of those first recordings.

In fact, a chart showing the associations of the musicians on this record would provide a fascinating insight into the cross-fertilization of musical ideas on the East coast during the past decade. The two bassists, John Ore and Butch Warren, are past and present members of the Thelonious Monk Quartet, one of the most vital points of origination of musical thought that we have. The two tracks — Old World, New Imports and Up A Step, each the final cut on its side—on which the personnel consists of Mobley, Byrd, Warren, Herbie Hancock and Philly Joe Jones, are fascinating because Mobley, Hancock and Jones represent three different eras of the Miles Davis Quintet, which is possibly the important jazz group of the decade.

Only Mobley and Jones are common to both groups here. On those four tracks on which Morgan is the trumpeter, Ore is the bassist, and the pianist is Andrew Hill, who has recently begun appearing on Blue Note records. Two of these four tracks — Carolyn and Me ‘N You, the middle track on each side —represent the writing of Lee Morgan, the other four being the work of Mobley. The first of these, Carolyn, is the set’s only ballad, and contains what is probably Morgan’s finest solo on the album. The other, Me ‘N You, a Latin blues, provides a good opportunity to call attention to the work of the remarkable Philly Joe Jones, for the track derives much of its spirit from him.

The two Mobley pieces played by this personnel are Three Way Split and the title track, No Room For Squares. Split is not very accurately titled, for Mobley takes much of the solo space for himself, sustaining interest at length in a way lie might not have been able to do a few years bock. Squares has a hint of the modality that Miles Davis uses so effectively, and the line itself is reminiscent of some of the writing of John Coltrane. In retrospect, it seems that the modal music of Davis and Coltrane was one of the most important styles to be grafted onto the basic hard-bop approach, and it now seems sure to remain as part of the standard vocabulary.

Up A Step, of the two tracks played by the group which includes Donald Byrd, is another piece with a hint of modality. The intriguingly titled Old World, New Imports, a happy, up-tempo rocker, is a fitting closer for the set.

Obviously, it would be foolish to make any claims of radicalism or profundity for the music. But I do think that the obvious community of understanding that exists between the musicians involved, and the high degree of professional competence that all of them hove attained in the post few years, speaks as well as anything for the fact that the style these men play has become the basic language of contemporary jazz in this country, the common tongue from which new statements will be made. Only a few years ago, that could have been argued, but I don’t think it con be any longer. Which is not to say anything against such giants as Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge and Pee Wee Russell; they ore still great. It is simply that, after Parker, such men as Davis, Silver and Blakey took jazz around another corner, and Hank Mobley and his associates on this record ore among the finer craftsmen to have inherited that legacy.

—JOE GOLDBERG

Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT NO ROOM FOR SQUARES

One of the many points affirmed by revisiting this classic album is the greatness of Philly Joe Jones. The drummer was a notoriously difficult personality who alienated more than one producer of the era, though he made a real connection with both Alfred Lion and Orrin Keepnews at Riverside. Jones, who was the house drummer for the latter label during the late '50s, never recorded as a leader for Lion; but he delivered some of his best studio work on Blue Note sessions, and invariably rose to the occasion when playing with Hank Mobley and/or Lee Morgan. The drummer's contributions to the 1961 Mobley sessions Workout and Another Workout had confirmed 'that, like Art Blakey and Billy Higgins, Jones was one of the saxophonist's ideal partners. As the one constant on this album besides the leader, Jones's flexibility, energy and often-overlooked taste, brought to bear on a wide range of material, is on clear display.

The program here was the first to appear under Mobley's name after he had left the Miles Davis band, with the earlier the two sessions recorded 15 months after his previous Blue Note effort. It signalled both the growth Joe Goldberg underscores in his original liner notes and a step toward the more blunt and rhythmically emphatic final stage of Mobley's development. From a discographical standpoint, No Room For Squares also represents Lion's indifference toward what the more compulsive among us might call discographical integrity. The original vinyl program of six tracks was drawn from two separate sessions, although subsequent reissues have demonstrated that each date produced enough material to have filled an LP of standard length. This CD reissue includes all tracks heard on the original album, plus two alternate takes.

Lee Morgan's appearance on the October 2, 1963 session marked the trumpeter's return to Blue Note after two years of scuffling in his native Philadelphia. Obscurity had overtaken Morgan so quickly after his celebrated stays with Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey that some people assumed he had died. After what proved to be the low point in his tragically short career, Morgan had actually pulled himself together, and the newfound maturity he displayed here as both player and composer announced his true artistic maturity. Before 1963 was over, Lion would record Morgan again on Grachan Moncur III's Evolution and his own surprise hit, The Sidewinder.

Andrew Hill, somewhat under wraps but capable enough in his hard bop setting, was making his second appearance on the label, and would launch his own monumental career as a Blue Note leader a month later.

Mobley, Morgan and Jones are all at their best here, with exceptional work by the leader on "Three Way Split" (one of many recorded examples of Mobley invigorating "Rhythm" changes) and the master take of the modal "No Room For Squares." Morgan's two compositions show his range. The master take of the gorgeous ballad "Carolyn" includes one of his most beautiful statements, as well as superb Mobley and Hill. Morgan's playing here announced a new emotional depth rom a musician who was already a serious ballad player when he recorded "l Remember Clifford" at age 18 (on the Blue Note album Lee Morgan Volume 3), and presages such masterpieces o come as "The Lady" (from The Rumproller) and "Ceora" (from Cornbread, and also featuring superlative Mobley). "Me 'N' You" is a Latinized blues jam driven by magnificent drumming that, both chronologically and stylistically, falls between Kenny Dorham's "Una Mas" and "The Sidewinder."

Both versions of the title track provide an excellent display of Jones's range, with crisp cymbal work on the introduction, breaks on the theme's bridge, driving supporting patterns for the soloists and muscular fours with the horns. While the ideas are slightly fresher on the master take, there is nothing obviously wrong with the alternate. An interesting variation on the alternate take of "Carolyn" is Mobley's background presence in support of the trumpet solo.

"Up a Step" and "Old World, New Imports" were recorded seven months earlier, on another of the greatest sessions of Mobley's career — a point obscured when the music was issued in bits and pieces over the course of 25 years. The assembled quintet was another highly compatible unit, featuring Jones with four players who had recently taped Donald Byrd's classic A New Perspective. Byrd and Mobley would subsequently work under Hancock's leadership on the My Point Of View album in two weeks time. Butch Warren had just succeeded Ore in Thelonious Monk's quartet, and Hancock would soon become the third member of the band to work for Miles Davis. Both of the group's performances here are classics. The modal "Up a Step" is a tour de force for the leader and the rhythm section, while the supercharged "Old World" includes one of Hancock's greatest early piano solos.

As memorable as all of the music is, this album might have attained classic status on the strength of its title, and its inspired Francis Wolff/Reid Miles cover. An artist lacking in Mobley's modesty might, with equal accuracy, have called the resulting album No Room For Improvement.

—Bob Blumenthal