The Middleweight Champion of the Tenor Sax

Three classic albums from Hank Mobley

April 30 marks International Jazz Day, which I wanted to celebrate by highlighting one of my favorite hard bop tenor sax players, the great Hank Mobley. While the nickname of ‘middleweight champion’ was often misinterpreted as meaning Hank was mediocre, it mostly just referred to his playing being somewhere between the super smooth Stan Getz and more aggressive John Coltrane.

While he wasn’t fully appreciated while he was alive, in retrospect Mobley was an incredibly important figure in the late 1950s through the 1970s, especially for the Blue Note label where he was a consistent and prolific performer.

Unfortunately, like many of his contemporaries, he struggled with heroin addiction and heavy long-term smoking, both of which contributed to his early retirment in the mid-1970s due to lung problems. He struggled later in his life, dealing with homelessness and other problems before developing lung cancer and passing away from pneumonia at the terribly young age of 55.

While it’s super difficult for me to choose just three albums to highlight, I want to keep this post pretty short and sweet, so I’m going to highlight a few of my favorites.

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Soul Station (1960)

For me, Soul Station is in my personal top 10 of all time. With an all-star supporting group, Hank is at his prime here. This was one of the earliest jazz albums I ever added to my collection and is a big reason why I fell in love with the genre.

For the most part, the album is fairly upbeat with no real slow, sultry ballads here. It’s a perfect sunny afternoon album to listen to while having lunch outside.

I won’t wax poetic too much about this one, and let the music speak for itself. I highly recommend listening to the entire album, but here is just one track.

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A Caddy For Daddy (1966)

Again, Hank is joined by an all-star ensemble, producing a pretty fun, distinctly mid-late 1960s album with a few originals and a Wayne Shorter track (Venus Di Mildew - this name always cracked me up). The album is best known for it’s very distinctive title track, which is below.

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Thinking of Home (1980)

This album was originally recorded in 1970, but languished due to the de facto death of the label in the early 1970s until it’s sale and revival in the early-mid 1980s. By the time this album was released, Mobley was already retired from playing, and not in a great place personally. This was the second of a handful of albums released ‘late,’ including Poppin, Curtain Call, Straight No Filter, and more — all recorded decades earlier and not released.

This album is especially notable for the opening suite — the only one he ever recorded (as far as I am aware).

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Hopefully these serve as a nice introduction to those unfamiliar with Hank Mobley! I strongly encourage listening to his discography as you have a chance, as a BIG part of the ‘Blue Note sound’ was really just Hank and his albums (you can also find him playing on many other albums where he isn’t leader).

How did you ‘celebrate’ International Jazz day? What did you listen to? I’d love to hear!