Hank Mobley - Roll Call (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series LP)

Hank Mobley - Roll Call | Vinyl LP - Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series Reissue (BST 84058, mastered by Kevin Gray, 180g)

Hank Mobley recorded prolifically for Blue Note across the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Roll Call catches him at the centre of a personnel web that connected every major hard bop ensemble of the period. Art Blakey plays drums. Blakey had led the Jazz Messengers for six years by this point and brought the same drive to other people's sessions that he brought to his own. Wynton Kelly plays piano. Kelly was Miles Davis's pianist and would record Someday My Prince Will Come with Mobley four months later. Paul Chambers plays bass. Chambers was, as on virtually every significant Blue Note and Columbia session of the era, the anchor. And Freddie Hubbard, 22 years old and newly arrived in New York from Indianapolis, plays trumpet with a confidence and range that announced his arrival as a major voice. Hubbard would go on to lead his own Blue Note sessions and eventually record Red Clay, Straight Life and the rest of his CTI catalogue.

All six tracks were recorded on November 13, 1960. "Roll Call" opens with a unison horn line from Mobley and Hubbard over Blakey's press roll and settles into a medium-tempo groove. "My Groove Your Move" is Mobley's most relaxed writing on the album. "A Baptist Beat" has the gospel-inflected feel its title promises, with Blakey's drumming pushing the backbeat. "The More I See You" is the ballad, a Harry Warren and Mack Gordon standard where Mobley's tone, warmer and rounder than most hard bop tenors, gets its fullest hearing. "The Breakdown" closes with the hardest swing on the record.

This is the Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series reissue (BST 84058 / 6514973), mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed at Optimal Media on 180g vinyl.