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You and a bazillion others. This is a huge find.
Hank Mobley video!
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Mark, I think "Soul Station" set the bar so high for Hank it was a tough act to follow. It seems that the Miles stint pushed Mobley into a more modal approach following those years. The cool relaxed BeBop lines were replaced with a more hard edged style. I like both but like you I prefer the former.
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Bro, I FULLY agree with everything you just said.
It’s nice to hear this, but the earlier stuff just grabs me at the heartstrings. Soul Station was absolutely something that was always going to be pretty impossible to beat, for me. Hank is stretching more here in the modal vein, but I really prefer his earlier approach far more. The joy here is the visual, for me.
I think most players have a period of time that listeners will grab onto, moreso than other periods.
Wow!!!!! I’ve looked so many times for video of Hank playing and never found anything….. this is amazing! His playing does sound a little more Traneish, but not in a copycat kind of way…… the addition of that modal/Trane vibe reminds me a bit of how guys like Clifford Jordan and Harold Land incorporated similar elements to their sounds during the same late 60’s period.
It’s funny because when Hank was playing with Trane in the early 60’s he sounded almost like he was trying extra hard to just be himself which I always appreciated…… extra melodic and making every note count like on A Blowing Session, Tenor Conclave, Someday My Prince Will Come, etc.
His timefeel is also interesting, a heavier “bounce” to his 8th note lines …… his playing was clearly evolving during this period. Wish he could have lived through the funky 70’s to the 80’s when music that swings made a real comeback.
It’s funny because when Hank was playing with Trane in the early 60’s he sounded almost like he was trying extra hard to just be himself which I always appreciated…… extra melodic and making every note count like on A Blowing Session, Tenor Conclave, Someday My Prince Will Come, etc.
His timefeel is also interesting, a heavier “bounce” to his 8th note lines …… his playing was clearly evolving during this period. Wish he could have lived through the funky 70’s to the 80’s when music that swings made a real comeback.
There's an interesting small essay about the period Hank Mobley spent in Europe at this link >>>.
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- Listed under the YouTube video:
Kenny Drew is on piano, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass, and Albert 'Tootie' Heath on drums.
They where also the rhythm section of Dexter during a big part of his stay in Denmark.
Armstrong Heritage alto, Martin Comm III Tenor, Yamaha YTS-21, Altus flute
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I have a Johnny Griffin live LP, recorded in 1967, with the same three backing him. Thank goodness for the Danes or we'd have almost no footage of some of our immortals. I actually got first hooked on jazz at a club in Copenhagen in the early 90's, when I was a teenager. Just some local players, but they were quite good. I'd never heard music played with that level of skill, passion and spontaneity. After that, there was no going back.
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Indeed a pity that the US didn't honor the jazz greats that much compared to some European countries (Denmark, England, The Netherlands, Belgium, others).
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According to the overview of his equipment on the site of Nicolas Trefeil (see post #11) Mobley seems to have owned two SBA tenors:
According to some pictures I saw the one used between 1957 and 1961 seems an early SBA, having the “eyebrow“ key guards on the low B and Bb.
From the later one (from Jan-1968) I couldn't find good pictures and the video in post #1 is also not showing the low B/Bb key guards very clear (check just after 3:45), but that SBA could have been another tenor then the one he used about 10 years earlier. That later one could have been the late (1953) SBA tenor later owned by Ronnie Scott and Art Themen.
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Definitely a pity that jazz musicians weren't given their due here in the country where jazz was born (it's a fact that racism had a lot to do with that), but in the U.S. back then, it really depended a lot on where you lived. New York had a major jazz scene, as did many of the major cities. Here in the SF Bay Area, there were numerous small clubs featuring top jazz musicians. I was lucky enough to see most of the jazz greats still alive during the '70s & '80s live and up close in clubs that looked much like that Copenhagen club.
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Wow, what a find ... thanks for sharing this!
Hank sounds great, they did a good job back then recording him - and watching this makes me immediately understand why Leonard Feather called him the "middleweight champ", such a nice and modest tone (in a way) when you compare it to other filmed live-recordings of that time. Very different from just listening to the albums indeed. What a joy to listen to!
Hank sounds great, they did a good job back then recording him - and watching this makes me immediately understand why Leonard Feather called him the "middleweight champ", such a nice and modest tone (in a way) when you compare it to other filmed live-recordings of that time. Very different from just listening to the albums indeed. What a joy to listen to!
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That video contains a picture of the recording Hank made in March 1968 in Holland and it shows that the SBA tenor Hank used in that time has the older style SBA low B/Bb key-guards (see also post #31):
See also this article (with some nice pictures) about that recording:
Hank Mobley in Holland, 1968
Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley is as beloved by jazz fans as Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. And for good reason. Mobley recorded for Blue Note throughout the 1950s and '60s, and for Cobblestone in 1972, and he appears on many...
www.jazzwax.com
In that article and under the video is also mentioned that Hank was filmed for a Dutch TV show, but that video doesn't exist anymore. They used Ampex video tapes in The Netherlands in those days and those tapes where unfortunately re-used after broadcasting! Good for us that the Danish tape in post #1 wasn't re-used!
Hank Mobley was one of hero's of Dutch jazz pianist Rein de Graaff. They met and played in NYC in 1967 and again when Hank did visit NL in 1968. He also stayed in the house of Rein (in the North of NL) and they did some gigs together. Rein met and played again with Hank in 1976 in club "Dino's Lounge" in Philadelphia, but in that time Hank was not playing well anymore due to weakness and drinking issues. All these facts (and more) can be found in the very nice Dutch book about the very long and interesting career of Rein (the book is named >'Belevenissen in Bebop'<).
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Wesley Chin transcribed the solo:
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Smaller tips of the same model normally sound a bit brighter compared to larger tips. The larger tips sound more hollow with a deeper subtone in the lower register. Hank's embouchure also looks very relaxed, which also points to medium tip and not to a very large tip.
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