Hank Mobley - Hank Mobley Quintet (1984 Japanese Blue Note Mono Vinyl LP)

Hank Mobley - Hank Mobley Quintet | Vinyl LP - 1984 Japanese Toshiba EMI Mono Reissue (BLP 1550, Blue Note BLP 1500 Series no. 50)

• The original Jazz Messengers lineup under Mobley's name, with Art Farmer on trumpet, Horace Silver on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Art Blakey on drums, all six tracks composed by Mobley
• Blue Note 1500 series mono pressing, manufactured by Toshiba EMI in Japan, licensed from Capitol Records, with four-page booklet including Japanese liner notes
• Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder at his Hackensack studio on March 8, 1957, with Francis Wolff photography and Harold Feinstein cover design

The five musicians on this date had all come through the Jazz Messengers. Horace Silver, Mobley, Doug Watkins and Art Blakey had played together in the original quintet, and Art Farmer had crossed paths with all of them on the Blue Note and Prestige circuits. By March 1957, Silver had left to form his own group, taking Mobley with him for 6 Pieces of Silver and subsequent sessions, but this date is under Mobley's name and the compositions are all his. The writing leans on Silver's influence without imitating it. "Funk in Deep Freeze" opens with the kind of midtempo hard bop groove that Silver's own records made a template for, but Mobley's solo pulls toward something more lyrical, his tone rounder and less percussive than the piano behind him. "Wham and They're Off" picks up the pace, Farmer's trumpet cutting through with a precision that contrasts with Mobley's slightly behind-the-beat phrasing. "Fin de l'Affaire" is the A-side's most reflective piece, Farmer and Mobley trading melodic lines over Silver's spare comping.

Side B opens with "Startin' from Scratch", another uptempo blower where Blakey's drums push the front line harder than on Side A. "Stella-Wise" is the standout, a midtempo theme that gives Silver his best solo of the session, block chords building into single-note runs that Mobley picks up and extends. "Base on Balls" closes the record as a relaxed blues. Farmer performs by courtesy of ABC-Paramount, where he was under contract, and his presence is one of the things that lifts this session above Mobley's more routine dates from the period. His tone sits alongside Mobley's in a way that creates warmth rather than competition. Produced by Alfred Lion, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder.

This is the 1984 Japanese mono reissue on Toshiba EMI (BLP 1550), number 50 in the Blue Note BLP 1500 series, with a four-page booklet carrying Robert Levin's original English liner notes and Japanese notes by Masamichi Okazaki. Not issued with an obi.