Description
Critic Leonard Feather coined the phrase about Hank Mobley that he was the “middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone.” His style was less aggressive than that of a John Coltrane or a Sonny Rollins, but also not as smooth and cool as that of a Stan Getz or Lester Young. Mobley introduced hard bop to jazz – music between cultivated worldliness and deep sensitivity, complexity and lightness, whose free structure allows extended improvisations. In 1956, Hank Mobley released Mobley’s Message on the Prestige label. Backed by Donald Byrd (trumpet), Barry Harris (piano), Jackie McLean (alto sax), Art Tayler (drums) and Doug Watkins (bass), he recorded six tracks in varying constellations. Only for Charlie Parker’s Au Privave the band acts as a sextet
