Sonny Clark - Blues Blue (1959)

East coast, west coast. You decide.

Listen to the up-tempo Junka and the moody My Conception from this LP.

Sonny Clark - Junka (1959)

It’s remarkable that this recording waited 41 years to be issued in the United States. It was released in 1979 in Japan, but Japan has a special relationship with Clark.

There were a lot of questionable Blue Note recordings that saw the light of day in their time, so it is hard to fathom the unavailability of this session for so many years. Was it an embarrassment of riches for Alfred Lion? I’m sure Sonny Clark would have liked to know. Of the last four sessions he led for Blue Note, only one was released while he was alive.

Veterans Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd and the irrepressible Art Blakey help this sound a lot like the Jazz Messengers featuring Sonny Clark with Paul Chambers on bass. To these ears, it’s a true dream quintet.

Hank Mobley and Lee Morgan captured in various states of unconsciousness by the baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter

[left to right] Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Horace Silver, Billy Taylor and Art Blakey in 1956 (photo by Pannonica de Koenigswarter)

Four-fifths of the 1956 edition of the Jazz Messengers (minus Doug Watkins)

behardfreebop:

George Morrow, Hank Mobley, Max Roach and Kenny Dorham at one of the December 1957 Max Roach Plus Four Plays Charlie Parker sessions.

Happy Born Day to Max Roach!

Credit: Scanned from the Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions booklet by Mosaic Records.

[left to right] Hank Mobley and Charlie Rouse at Nica’s Cathouse circa early 1960s 

(photo by Pannonica de Koenigswarter, from the book Three Wishes)

[left to right} John Ore, Hank Mobley and Charles Tolliver jamming late night at Nica’s Cathouse circa mid 1960s

(photo by Pannonica de Koenigswarter, from the book Three Wishes)

[left to right] Hank Mobley, unknown pianist (Randy Weston?), and Bobby Hutcherson circa mid 1960s (photo by Pannonica de Koenigswarter, from the book Three Wishes)

Hank Mobley - Soft Impression (1966)

In my head for days…

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Alone Together (1955)

Here’s a second version of Alone Together for a low-key comparison of style and swing. A couple truths are in evidence here: 1) Mobley murders ballads, and 2) Horace Silver was a pitch-perfect accompanist.

[left to right] Doug Watkins, Hank Mobley, Art Blakey and Kenny Dorham during the recording of the Jazz Messengers’ At The Cafe Bohemia Volume 1 live session, November 23 1955 (photo by Francis Wolff)

Hank Mobley and Grant Green at Mobley’s Workout session, Englewood Cliffs NJ, March 26 1961 (photo by Francis Wolff)

tornandfrayed:

Hank Mobley with his tenor sax at the recording session A Caddy For Daddy at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, in 1965. Photo by Francis Wolff.

Great shot. Nice find.

Horace Silver - My One And Only Love (1957)

Every time this cut comes on the stereo, I can’t help but play it twice. 

• Cover note: this LP is Blue Note’s first cover featuring a color photograph by Francis Wolff.

• Photo note: Hank Mobley and Art Farmer at Silver’s May 8, 1957 session.

Miles Davis - ‘Round Midnight (1961)

From Miles Davis’ autobiography:

“I also got to know Thelonious Monk better when I was working with Bean [Coleman Hawkins’ nickname]; Monk was in the band, too. Denzil Best was playing drums. I really liked Monk’s tune, “‘Round Midnight,” and I wanted to learn how to play it. So I used to ask him every night after I got through playing it, “Monk, how did I play it tonight?” And he’d say, looking all serious, “You didn’t play it right.” The next night, the same thing and the next and the next and the next. This went on for a while.

“That ain’t the way to play it,” he would say, sometimes with an evil, exasperated look on his face. Then, one night, I asked him and he said, “Yeah, that’s the way you play it.”

Man, that made me happier than a motherfucker, happier than a pig in shit. I’d gotten the sound down. It was one of the hardest. “‘Round Midnight” was very difficult because it had a complex melody and you had to hang it together. You had to play it so you could hear the chords and changes and also hear the tops; it was just one of those tunes that you had to hear. It wasn’t like a regular eight-bar melody or motif and it stopped, like in a minor key. It’s a hard tune to learn and remember. I can still play it, but I don’t like to do it too much now, except maybe when I’m practicing, alone. And what made it so hard for me to play was that I had to get all those harmonies. I had to hear the song, play it, and improvise so that Monk could hear the melody.”