MY NORTHERN SKIES

Featured Album | 390

Hank Mobley | Soul Station | Jazz Images 37165 | 1960

Originally released in 1960 on Blue Note, Soul Station is Hank Mobley’s twelfth album, with some of the earlier releases on either Savoy or Prestige. Joined by Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Blakey on drums, Mobley allows these musicians plenty of scope for improvisation, notably on “This I Dig of You”, which could easily be Mobley’s way of showing his appreciation. Art Blakey’s drum solo alone demonstrates the fact that Mobley hangs around the right people. This re-issue on Jazz Images re-visits the same set list with the addition of a bonus track, “Three Coins in a Fountain”, with Philly Joe Jones replacing Blakey, plus an entirely different cover shot, though by the same photographer, Francis Wolff. With Alfred Lion producing and the ever dependable Rudy Van Gelder at the controls, the other six original album tracks sound as fresh as the day they were recorded, that day being 7 February, 1960, the place, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.