Customer Reviews

Peckin Time

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The album cover would make you think "Peckin' Time" is as much Lee Morgan's album as it is Hank Mobley's. But as much as those two were affiliated together in the late 50s, this is definitely Hank's effort as he contributed four of the five compositions. Joined in this quintet by formidable rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Charlie Persip, Hank and Lee swing in the classic style of 50s Blue Note albums. Hank would hook up again with Wynton and P.C. on the early 60s classics "Soul Stataion," "Roll Call," and "Workout," and this, his last recording in the 50s, is slightly below those three in overall quality. However, with only two of Mobley's nine Blue Note albums from the 50s available on CD, this is an excellent look at the early years of an underrated jazz giant.

This CD, originally recorded in 1958, presents a fairly early (although not the first) collaboration between saxophonist Hank Mobley and trumpeter Lee Morgan. This album was followed up by some Jazz Messenger albums in 1959 and many more collaborations including Mobley's No Room For Squares, Dippin', A Caddy for Daddy, A Slice of the Top, Third Season, and Straight No Filter and Morgan's Cornbread, Charisma, and The Rajah, all of which were recorded in the 1960s.

Mobley and Morgan are two outstanding jazz instrumentalists and are backed up by a great rhythm section. Their music is essentially hard bop, an offshoot of the bebop jazz that revolutionized jazz in the 1940s. Hard bop took bebop and mixed in some R&B, gospel, and blues.

This is a very good album with good variety and very stylish solos by Mobley, Morgan, and pianist Wynton Kelly. I think this album is on par with No Room For Squares and better than Dippin' which suffered from monotony. I think Cornbread is the best Mobley/Morgan collaboration that I have heard, but I have not heard all their joint ventures. Some listeners might prefer Mobley's earlier sound of the 50s which was less harsh than the sound he developed in the mid 60s.

Quite frankly, I am surprised that this disc is being reissued as an RVG title since the original CD has not yet gone out-of-print. (Isn't the self-titled "Hank Mobley," with its fabulous Francis Wolff cover photograph, a better choice to release first?) Well I assume with his Mosaic Set finally selling out, we will slowly see all of Hank's terrific 1950s Blue Note albums resurface. From this album cover, you would think "Peckin' Time" is as much Lee Morgan's album as it is Hank Mobley's. And while they were often paired together in the late 50s, this is definitely Hank's effort as he contributed four of the five compositions. Joined in this quintet by the formidable rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Charlie Persip, Hank and Lee swing in the classic style of 50s Blue Note albums. Hank would hook up again with Wynton and P.C. on the early 60s classics Soul Station, Roll Call and Workout (see my review of the latter), but this, his last recording in the 50s, is slightly below those three in overall quality. However, with only three of Mobley's nine Blue Note albums from the 50s currently available on CD stateside, this is an excellent look at the early years of an underrated jazz giant.

This session, recorded three years after monster Mobley sessions like "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers" (on Columbia) and "Art Blakey at the Cafe Bohemia," represents mature Mobley, as melodious, inventive, soulful-sounding as ever, all translating into the best jazz you'll ever hear. Right from the opener, "High and Flighty," Mobs comes charging out of gate, to much the same felicitous effect as he does on Irving Berlin's "Remember," the opening track on "Soul Station." He's the most pure, agenda-less, unaffected, in-the-moment player of them all, and this session is once again a painful reminder that compared to Stitt, Dexter, Trane, and Jug, whom I caught dozens of times, I had so little opportunity to hear the "real" Hank while he was alive (the man was wasted by the early 1970s, and not merely a victim of his own vices).

Mobley's very sound expresses what Baldwin writes in "Sonny's Blues" (the best story about the jazz life) when the narrator, during the sacramental session in the club where his brother-musician works, has his epiphany about art, jazz, and the African-American experience: in that moment of creative inspiration the musician embodies, or makes his own, the flowering beauty issuing from the darkness and suffering of a whole line of descent.

Lee Morgan is merely fine, not up to K.D. or Byrd as yet but capable of holding his own. And he's refreshingly straightforward on this date (no Diz tricks or hint of affected posing). The rhythm section is the redoubtable Miles Davis pair of Chambers and Kelly along with a refreshing change from the usual Blue Note house drummer (Blakey, Higgins, Taylor, Haynes, Philly Joe). Charlie Persip shows that despite his abundant technique he can, when given the chance, play "with" guys rather feel the need to showboat. Like Blakey he's a little forward on the beat, but with a crisper, cleaner, and busier sound on drum heads tuned tighter than the norm. Above all, he swings and keeps the game in play through each and every take. (I know some listeners who hate the inclusion of out-takes; with musicians like these, however, twice can be twice as nice.)

Further testimony to the substance of the music on this occasion is that Van Gelder's distortion of the piano sound doesn't prove an obstacle to enjoying the music for a change. Hope EMI doesn't mess with this one and reissue an "RVG Remaster." Just reissue it. No "improvements" necessary, probably not even possible.

Ok, good session, fine music; swell. I'll buy this album in a hot minute when they come out with a new edition that doesn't line up an alternate take after every tune. I don't know who it was who originally started this hateful practice, this ridiculous pedagogical attempt to turn a good listen into some kind of irritating academic exercise, but I'd like to smack that person across the head with my remote control.
We truly do appreciate the amazing work you do of remastering stuff that was recorded, to your way of thinking, in the dark ages. But when we can no longer enjoy a good jazz album in its original running order because you didn't know when to stop tinkering, it's hard to stay cool. Listen knob jockeys, you can pile up all the extras you want at the end of your CD rerelease, BUT HOW ABOUT GETTING YOUR OWN STUPID EGO OUT OF THE WAY OF THE PROJECT AND LEAVE THE ORIGINAL RUNNING ORDER ALONE?
Sorry, but I can't help myself. Maybe this issue has been addressed to a sufficient degree already or maybe not. But until I'm no longer seeing these Idiot Editions offered for sale, I'm just gonna be really cheesed off that so many of them were created in the first place. Gawd, I hate these friggin' things!!!
And you wonder why "jazz is dead?" If these people could bring themselves to rerelease this great music without going out of their way to suck the fun out of it, maybe a few more bright people would pick up on it.
But what do I know? I'm just trying to hear some good jazz.