Hank MOBLEY - Reach Out!

jazzland

£26.50

(LP)
Elemental Music
Cat: ERLP 1022. Rel: 10th January 20020

Jazz

Special limited edition - 180gram vinyl - Gatefold sleeve with alternative
covers - original Liner Notes

HANK MOBLEY, tenor sax; WOODY SHAW, trumpet and fluegelhorn;
GEORGE BENSON, guitar; LAMONT JOHNSON, piano;
BOB CRANSHAW, bass; BILLY HIGGINS, drums
Blue Note session, January 19th, 1968, New York

“This January 1968 recorded session pretty much illustrates the dilemma many
Jazz men faced at the time: either let themselves be submerged by the waves
of Free-Jazz, the avant-garde renewal of the genre or be tempted by the lure
of audience recognition and the dollars of the record buying public; if they
picked the latter alternative up they’d again be confronted with two options:
to cover immediately recognizable Pop hits or to invent something new but
equally appealing; Hank Mobley opted ,albeit and thankfully only partially, for
the former and the bait was thus placed at the beginning of each side of the
album’s original LP format.
This fanciful intro has of course ignored a third possibility which was to
simultaneously experiment more than one option while working on a project,
and that’s exactly what Mobley and his sextet of hardened musicians did on
this date and why this album - rendered in two distinct velocities or levels of
commitment -, is still a very worthy listening experience and deserves a place in
any self respecting collection.” Commusduk - rateyourmusic.com
Tracks: Reach Out (I’ll Be There) / Up, Over, And Out / Lookin’ East / Goin’ Out
Of My Head / Good Pickin’s / Beverly