Customer Reviews

Third Season

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There's no one--I'll say it again: no one, period--who improvises more creatively than Hank Mobley, 1954-1963. Anything from this period gets played every day in my collection: it's music of inexhaustible lyricism and unforced beauty--more palatable than a constant diet of any other saxophonist I can think of. Beginning as early as 1964 Hank begins to buckle--to the pressures from Blue Note for not selling records, to the pressures of peers, who were either running funk-wild over boogaloo beats or churning out the same Dorian mode tunes over and over again. Neither approach treated Hank kindly, who couldn't "sell out" even when he tried to. Sound was his medium, his instrument, his voice--not his gimmick.

This session has more of the old Mobley than I would have expected and, moreover, is not mired in soul cliches or faux modal freedom. But the proceedings get dull in a hurry, as though a listless Mobley senses it's about over, short of a last few, mostly unfortunate, attempts to gain the ears of listeners in the late sixties and beyond. Pick it up only if you're determined to fill in all of the chapters of the rise and fall of a natural-born singer on the instrument, perhaps the most inventive yet purest aesthete the blues has ever known.

Anything with Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, Lee Morgan, and Billy Higgins has to be a classic. Except for Boss Bossa, every tune is a standout.

This is a mediocre Hank Mobley CD to say the least. Mobley's late 50s Blue Note albums are solid hard bop affairs, and his early 60s albums for the label are classics. But after 1963, the albums are hit or miss. The problems with "The Third Season" can be summed up in the first track, "An Aperitif." After a creative theme, Lee Morgan plays an uncharacteristically uninspired trumpet solo, and Sonny Greenwich, when he's not trying to catch up to the song's tempo, is playing some pretty boring licks. Thankfully, Mobley and Cedar Walton are in fine form, and they help save the recording. Since this is a limited edition CD, many people will want to pick it up quickly. But if you're new to Mobley's music, start with "Soul Station" or "Workout."