Henry Mobley (July 7, 1930 – May 30, 1986) was an American tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by
Leonard Feather
Leonard Geoffrey Feather (13 September 1914 – 22 September 1994) was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer, who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.
Biography
Feather was born in London, England, into an u ...
as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone, that was neither as aggressive as
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
nor as mellow as
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most i ...
, and his style that was laid-back, subtle and melodic, especially in contrast with players such as Coltrane and
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American retired jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians.
In a seven-decade career, Rollins recorded over sixt ...
. The critic Stacia Proefrock claimed him "one of the most underrated musicians of the bop era." Mobley's compositions include "Double Exposure", "Soul Station", and "Dig Dis".
Early life and education
Mobley was born in
Eastman, Georgia
Eastman is a city in Dodge County, Georgia, United States. The population was 5,658 at the 2020 census, up from 4,962 at the 2010 census. The city was named after William Pitt Eastman, a native of Massachusetts who purchased a large tract of l ...
, but was raised in
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth is a City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Newark. He described himself as coming from a musical family and spoke of his uncle playing in a jazz band. As a child, Mobley played piano.
When he was 16, an illness kept him in the house for several months. In response, his grandmother bought him a saxophone to help him occupy his time. He tried to enter a music school in Newark but wasn’t accepted since he wasn’t a resident, so he taught himself
theory
A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...
and
harmony
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...
from books that his grandmother bought for him, while also teaching himself to play the tenor saxophone.
Career
1949–1956: Early career and Jazz Messengers years
At 19, he started to play with local bands and, months later, worked for the first time with such musicians as
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...
and
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He wo ...
. Roach introduced Mobley to the New York jazz scene in 1951, and over the next two years the latter began composing and recording tunes of his own. He played with multiple R&B bands during this period, and played for two weeks in 1953 with the
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life.
Born and raised in Washington, D ...
Orchestra when saxophonist Jimmy Hamilton was recovering from dental work. When
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz Saxophone, saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of beb ...
heard Mobley's playing, he advised the young musician to take more influence from blues music.
In April 1953, he was hired by Max Roach to play on the album released as '' The Max Roach Quartet featuring Hank Mobley''. He later appeared on two Roach sessions recorded in 1957 and 1958 for EmArcy records.
Shortly after working with Roach, he began working regularly with another drummer and bandleader,
Art Blakey
Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s.
Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...
. He and Blakey took part in one of the earliest
hard bop
Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospe ...
sessions, alongside pianist
Horace Silver
Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver (September 2, 1928 – June 18, 2014) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, particularly in the hard bop style that he helped pioneer in the 1950s.
After playing tenor saxophone and piano at sch ...
Kenny Dorham
McKinley Howard "Kenny" Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and occasional singer. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention ...
. The results of these sessions were released as '' Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers''. At this point, the band was a collective, sometimes appearing and recording under the names of either Silver or Blakey. Mobley was also in The Jazz Messengers for the recording of the live album '' At the Cafe Bohemia'', and he appeared on the Columbia Records studio album '' The Jazz Messengers''. Mobley used the Jazz Messengers' rhythm section as his backing band for his 1955 Blue Note Records debut, '' Hank Mobley Quartet''. When the Silver/Watkins/Blakey version of The Jazz Messengers split up in 1956, Mobley continued working with Silver for a short time, appearing on '' Silver's Blue'', '' 6 Pieces of Silver'', and '' The Stylings of Silver''. Mobley worked for brief periods with Blakey a few years later, rejoining the drummer's band (which was called Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, and was no longer a collective) in the spring and summer of 1959. He also hired Blakey to play on two of his Blue Note solo albums recorded in 1960.
1956–1970:
Blue Note
Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue no ...
years
Mobley recorded steadily during the second half of the 1950s for Blue Note records, a series of albums which featured him with
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s and a cornerstone of the Blue Note Records, Blue Note label, Morgan came to prominence in his la ...
,
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, composer and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few h ...
,
Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, doub ...
,
Kenny Dorham
McKinley Howard "Kenny" Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and occasional singer. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention ...
,
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean (May 17, 1931 – March 31, 2006) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator. He is one of the few musicians to be elected to the ''DownBeat'' Hall of Fame in the year of their death.
Bio ...
,
Pepper Adams
Park Frederick "Pepper" Adams III (October 8, 1930 – September 10, 1986) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist and composer. He composed 42 pieces, was the leader on eighteen albums spanning 28 years, and participated in 600 sessions as a s ...
,
Milt Jackson
Milton Jackson (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999), nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solos as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his penchant for collaborating with ...
,
Sonny Clark
Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark (July 21, 1931 – January 13, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom.
Early life
Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town east of P ...
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of ...
,
Wynton Kelly
Wynton Charles Kelly (December 2, 1931 – April 12, 1971) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He is known for his lively, blues-based playing and as one of the finest accompanists in jazz. He began playing professionally at the age of 1 ...
,
Paul Chambers
Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was an American jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, he has become one of the most widely-known jazz bassists of the hard bop er ...
, and
Philly Joe Jones
Joseph Rudolph "Philly Joe" Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was an American Jazz drumming, jazz drummer.
Biography Early career
As a child, Jones appeared as a featured tap dancer on ''The Kiddie Show'' on the Philadelphia radio stat ...
George Coleman
George Edward Coleman (born March 8, 1935) is an American jazz saxophonist known for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s. In 2015, he was named an NEA Jazz Master.
Early life
Coleman was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was ...
, and bassists George Morrow and Nelson Boyd also recorded on the album, which consisted entirely of Parker compositions. In March 1959, Mobley rejoined the Jazz Messengers. With this edition of The Jazz Messengers, he recorded '' At the Jazz Corner of the World'' and the studio album first released in 2020 as ''Just Coolin. During this same period, Mobley and Blakey appeared together on a
Sonny Clark
Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark (July 21, 1931 – January 13, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom.
Early life
Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town east of P ...
recording session that was first released in 1979 as ''
My Conception
''My Conception'' is an album by jazz pianist Sonny Clark, recorded for the Blue Note label and performed by Clark with Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Paul Chambers, and Art Blakey. It was originally released in 1979 in Japan, as GXF 3056, featuri ...
''. Mobley was with the Jazz Messengers during the
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...
that summer, but soon after left the band and was replaced by
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933 – March 2, 2023) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Shorter came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for whom he eventually became the primary comp ...
.
During the 1960s, he worked chiefly as a leader, and continued to record for
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by History of the Jews in Germany, German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it deriv ...
until 1970. Notable records from this period include '' Soul Station'' (1960), generally considered to be his finest recording, and ''
Roll Call
''Roll Call'' is a newspaper and website published in Washington, D.C., United States, when the United States Congress is in session, reporting news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of c ...
'' (1960). Both of these albums featured Blakey on drums, and they were the final recordings Mobley made with the drummer. In a 2020 review of ''Soul Station'', The Recording Academy's ''Grammy Awards'' website called the album Mobley's "most rewarding listen despite not breaking the mold." Grammy has also referred to the album as "effortlessly elegant." ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' gave Mobley's four "classic" albums ('' Peckin’ Time'', ''Soul Station'', ''Roll Call'' and '' Workout'') five stars noting that " r once, the word 'classic' is justified." The article referred to his "infinite subtlety" and ability as "an ingenious composer" as justification for this rating.
During this period of his career, he performed with bop and hard bop musicians including
Grant Green
Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was an American jazz guitarist and composer.
Green has been called one of the "most sampled guitarists."
Biography
Grant Green was born on June 6, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, to John and ...
,
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
,
Sonny Clark
Conrad Yeatis "Sonny" Clark (July 21, 1931 – January 13, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who mainly worked in the hard bop idiom.
Early life
Clark was born and raised in Herminie, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town east of P ...
,
Wynton Kelly
Wynton Charles Kelly (December 2, 1931 – April 12, 1971) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He is known for his lively, blues-based playing and as one of the finest accompanists in jazz. He began playing professionally at the age of 1 ...
and
Philly Joe Jones
Joseph Rudolph "Philly Joe" Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was an American Jazz drumming, jazz drummer.
Biography Early career
As a child, Jones appeared as a featured tap dancer on ''The Kiddie Show'' on the Philadelphia radio stat ...
, and formed a particularly productive partnership with trumpeter
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s and a cornerstone of the Blue Note Records, Blue Note label, Morgan came to prominence in his la ...
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...
band in 1961, during the period when Davis was searching for a tenor saxophone player to permanently replace
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
. Mobley is heard on the album '' Someday My Prince Will Come'' (on two tracks, playing alongside Coltrane), and the live recordings '' In Person: Live at the Blackhawk'' and '' At Carnegie Hall''. ''JazzTimes'' noted that around the time he played with Davis, Mobley "retooled his sound" from a lighter to a harder-edged tone.
In 1961, Mobley recorded two of his own albums, '' Workout'' and '' Another Workout'', although ''Another Workout'' was not released until 1985. Both featured a rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, all of whom were in Davis's bands during the late 1950s. Producer Michael Cuscuna called the delay of the latter album's release "incomprehensible" and "astonishing", according to writer Bob Blumenthal. The personnel on ''Workout'' included guitarist
Grant Green
Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was an American jazz guitarist and composer.
Green has been called one of the "most sampled guitarists."
Biography
Grant Green was born on June 6, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, to John and ...
, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, while ''Another Workout'' featured the same personnel, excluding Green. Mobley rehearsed extensively before his 1960s Blue Note recordings, typically twice during the week preceding a Saturday studio session, with Blue Note paying for the rehearsals and recordings. Alfred Lion, co-producer of the label, would frequently direct the band's tempo or critique studio takes until he was pleased with them.
Mobley recorded '' No Room for Squares'' in 1964, featuring trumpeters
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, composer and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few h ...
and Lee Morgan, with ''
DownBeat
''DownBeat'' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1 ...
'' remarking that on the album Mobley "conveyed quiet authority", and followed a year later with '' A Caddy for Daddy''. Mobley, Lee Morgan, and soul jazz pianist Harold Mabern recorded another mid-60s album, '' Dippin''', in one day. According to Samuel Chell, ''No Room for Squares'' was "the first session on which obleywould begin to sacrifice lyric inspiration and subtlety of phrasing to a harder sound and stiffer rhythmic approach."
In 1964, while serving a prison sentence for
narcotics
The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "I make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...
possession, Mobley wrote songs that were later recorded for the album '' A Slice of the Top''. The album was recorded in 1966 but was not released until 1979. The popularity of Mobley's albums decreased during the mid-1960s, though he continued to record regularly this period. Three critically acclaimed albums recorded during the mid- to late-60s include ''A Caddy for Daddy'', '' Hi Voltage'', and '' The Flip''. Apart from his album '' Reach Out!'', also recorded in the late 60s, Mobley avoided progressive jazz and the electric sound popular with jazz musicians during this period.
1970–1986: retirement
One of Mobley's final albums, titled '' Breakthrough!'', was recorded in 1972 with baritone saxophonist Charles Davis, pianist
Cedar Walton
Cedar Anthony Walton Jr. (January 17, 1934 – August 19, 2013) was an American hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey's band, The Jazz Messengers, before establishing a long career as a bandleader and c ...
Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop.
Biography
Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, be ...
. Scott Yanow noted that Mobley's career was about to "eclipse" following this record date.
In 1973, shortly before the end of his career, he began a musical collaboration with
Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams (born Richard Lewis Abrams; September 19, 1930 – October 29, 2017) was an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the free jazz medium. He recorded and toured the Uni ...
, although the two never recorded together. Following Mobley's semi-retirement, pianist
Tete Montoliu
Vicenç Montoliu i Massana, better known as Tete Montoliu (28 March 1933 – 24 August 1997) was a Spanish jazz pianist from Catalonia, Spain. Born blind, he learnt braille music at age seven. His styles varied from hard bop, through Afro-Cuban, ...
and Mobley recorded one track together on the 1980 album '' I Wanna Talk About You'', the jazz standard " Autumn Leaves".
In 1979, in an interview with John Litweiler, Mobley noted: "It's hard for me to think of what could be and what should have been."
Mobley gave a speech at the Blue Note Town Hall concert in 1985.
Personal life
Mobley became addicted to
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...
in the late 1950s, and in 1958 was imprisoned. He continued to struggle with his drug addiction during the 1960s.
A longtime smoker, Mobley was forced to retire in the mid-1970s, due to lung problems. He also had problems with
homelessness
Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...
in his later years and struggled to stay in touch with his fellow musicians. He worked two engagements at the Angry Squire in New York City – November 22 and 23, 1985, and January 11, 1986 – in a quartet with
Duke Jordan
Irving Sidney "Duke" Jordan (April 1, 1922 – August 8, 2006) was an American jazz pianist.
Biography
Jordan was born in New York and raised in Brooklyn where he attended Boys High School. An imaginative and gifted pianist, Jordan was a regul ...
and guest singer Lodi Carr, a few months before his death.
He died of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
in 1986, aged 55, having also suffered from lung cancer.
Legacy
Jazz radio host Bob Perkins described Mobley's style as "round, throaty, and distinctive", noting that despite "lukewarm appraisals of his artistry by critics, Hank Mobley overcame some major stumbling blocks to acquire a place in the history of jazz music."
Mosaic Records
Mosaic Records is an American jazz record company and label established in 1982 by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie. It produces limited-edition box sets.
The sets recordings are leased from the major record companies, usually for a three- or f ...
released two multidisc compilations of Mobley's Blue Note recordings. ''The Complete Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions'' was released by the label in 1998, and ''The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70'' was released in 2019. '' GQ'' noted that seven of Mobley's 12 Blue Note albums recorded in the 1963–70 period were quickly slated for release, with the others "chopped up and mixed and matched—which denied Mobley his proper place in the music of the time and left him deeply frustrated." Mobley himself was dismayed by the record label's tendency to pressure him into studio sessions, only to decide not to release the recorded music. For instance, Mobley's album ''Poppin'' was recorded in 1957 and released 23 years later.
''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...
'' lamented that "an unfortunate side effect of 20th century Modernism is that istenabilitydoesn't put you in the history books," referencing Mobley's style and the lack of attention paid to his work, as compared to
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
and
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American retired jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians.
In a seven-decade career, Rollins recorded over sixt ...
. According to fellow saxophonist Gary Bartz, the fact his compositions were not organized with one publishing company made profiting from them difficult.
In November 2020, the Van Gelder Studio's first livestream video was a tribute to Mobley. In 2022, saxophonist
Art Themen
Arthur Edward George Themen (born 26 November 1939) is a British jazz saxophonist and formerly orthopaedic surgeon. Critic John Fordham has described him as "an appealing presence on the British jazz circuit for over 40 years.... Originally a ...
purchased a saxophone that had previously been owned by
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott Order of the British Empire, OBE (born Ronald Schatt; 28 January 1927 – 23 December 1996) was a British jazz Tenor saxophone, tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner. He co-founded Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London's Soho district ...
and, before him, by Mobley. Grammy's article "Let Me Play The Answers: 8 Jazz Artists Honoring Black Geniuses" cited Mobley as an influence on jazz trumpeter Bruce Harris, and Art Blakey's contribution to ''Soul Station'' as, metaphorically, the "hottest part of the flame" according to former Jazz Messengers drummer Ralph Peterson, Jr.