Guest Column: Review of Hank Mobley Bio

Thanks to Mike Falcon for the following excellent book review.

Workout: The Music of Hank Mobley By Derek Ansell

A Review by Mike Falcon

Hank Mobley’s music is well documented.  Hank recorded a wealth of material that fans are still enjoying a half-century later, perhaps more than ever.  But, for a very long time, any fan wanting to know more about Hank’s life had a hard time finding anything.  Searching the Internet yields little.  Searching back issues of jazz periodicals looking for any interviews wouldn’t yield much.  Derek Ansell explains in Workout: The Music of Hank Mobley that Hank only gave one substantial interview throughout his career. The interview occurred in 1973 when his career was in a steep decline.  Other than this, Ansell was forced to piece together a picture of Hank from what little others had to say about him.

Hank moved to New York from New Jersey in 1951 on an invitation from Max Roach to play in his band.  From then to about 1970 Hank worked consistently as both a leader and a sideman, barring interruptions due to short prison sentences.  He never had much trouble getting gigs.  He worked the club scene consistently.  Well regarded by many of his peers, his inability to take his success to the next level was due to his highly introverted personality and the fact that he came onto the scene around the same time as two other tenor sax giants: Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane.  Ansell details how Hank’s sound was not popular among the critics of the day.  One standout was the critic Leonard Feather who described Mobley as “the middleweight champion of the tenor.”

I’ve always found that statement accurate, as he was situated between critical favorites like Stan Getz with a cool sound, and Coltrane or Rollins with a heavier tone.  Sadly though, at the time the critics were fixated on those styles and Hank was seen as a lesser tenor.  Thankfully, Blue Note didn’t see him that way.  He is the second most recorded artist on the label next to Jimmy Smith.  Ansell’s book details this and the various other reasons why Hank was underappreciated as a leader, soloist and composer.

The thing that Ansell’s book does best is to provide an analysis of many of Hank’s works.  The book is about the “Music of Hank Mobley.”  So while it is considered a biography, biographical information takes a back seat to the analysis of Hank’s work.  Anyone looking to pick up this book should know going in that the author spills the most ink on breaking down the music. The author is an unabashed fan. He believes that Hank didn’t really have many bad sessions as a leader and most of his albums are great.  The most detailed album analysis comes from Hank’s ‘60-‘61 period where he was perhaps his most prolific and recorded his most highly regarded works.  The only album that seemed missing to me from the detailed analysis was “Hank Mobley” (Blue Note 1568), which I think is one of Hank’s best.  After careful consideration I’ve decided that what I like most about this album is Sonny Clark so I can forgive the omission.  Hank’s earlier works are thoroughly discussed primarily to demonstrate his maturation process as a soloist and composer.  Reading caused me to understand a few things that should have been obvious.  Hank hit his prime in 1960 and all of the great albums he put out and recorded before then are to be appreciated for different reasons than his albums like “Soul Station” and “Workout.”  The works from his more mature period are where he put the finishing touches on his sound and composing to reach a truly sublime level as an artist.

The best thing about diving into this book was re-listening to all of the albums that I had put aside for a while.  I’ve gained new appreciation for a few sessions that I hadn’t heard in a long time.  I hadn’t listen to the Hank on the Blackhawk sessions with Miles since I bought the Mosaic set in 2003.  I have no idea now why I haven’t been listening to these regularly as they have again become some of my favorite Miles’ sessions.  Others that I’ve gained new appreciation for were Hanks output from 1965-1970 for Blue Note, especially the sessions that were released well after they were recorded.  Albums like “A Slice of the Top,” “Far Away Lands,” “Reach Out,” and “The Flip” have sat on my shelves collecting dust for too long.  I can’t thank the author enough for causing me to reassess them.

Understanding what Workout: The Music of Hank Mobley is and is not is important in order to decide whether to read this book.  This is supposed to be a biography, but succeeds more as an analysis of Hank’s work and an examination of Hank’s career.  One of the aspects I enjoy most about jazz biographies is all of the entertaining stories and anecdotes that come through interviewing the peers of the musicians.  There is little of that in this book; the author had little information to work with when it came to Hank.  Hank was private and reclusive.  Unfortunately, the majority of his contemporaries are dead, as is Hank for over 20 years, which makes it difficult to find anything new.  The author does detail his efforts, but they were mostly in vain.  Still, some of the artists from then are still alive and could have added a lot of dimension to this book.  Hank’s life will continue to have an aura of mystery about it, even while his music is as popular and available as it has ever been.