Hank Mobley, down beat, March 29, 1973

[JSngry]

Re: Arlene Lissner, mentioned as the soon-to-be Mrs. Mobley: http://www.founderstrust.org/staff/arlene.html

Arlene Lissner has an extensive and rich history in developing alternative treatments in the areas of substance abuse, behavioral health, and juvenile delinquency. In 1973, she established the Abraxas Foundation, an alternative to traditional incarceration for adolescent and young adult offenders which, today, has grown to more than 35 juvenile treatment facilities.

When the Abraxas Foundation was acquired in 1997 by Cornell Companies, a Houston-based corrections company, Arlene established Founder’s Trust, which is now comprised of the Charitable and the Research and Evaluation Divisions. Arlene is President and Chairperson of Founder’s Trust, whose mission is to serve as a resource in helping youth, adults, families and communities affected by crime, substance abuse, and other social and behavioral problems. arlenelissner@founderstrust.org

[srellek]

Thanks for the post, JSngry. Much appreciated!

I had thought that the movie/Paris music was THINKING OF HOME, the record and the suite (which I believe is the only multi-form composition we have from Mobley)...?

For anyone on the fence or just waiting around for the Mosaic box, don't lose another minute. This is all-time great stuff. The sound, the tone, there really is something special about Hankenstein. Charlie Haden had some great observations in last month's DownBeat, remarking on the beauty and inventiveness of Hank's use of silence...

[Dan Gould]

Thanks for the post, JSngry. Much appreciated!

I had thought that the movie/Paris music was THINKING OF HOME, the record and the suite (which I believe is the only multi-form composition we have from Mobley)...?

Come to think of it, I think that was also part of the discussion at the BNBB - Thinking of Home and SOT were generally considered to be the sessions Hank must have been talking about.

[BruceH]

For anyone on the fence or just waiting around for the Mosaic box, don't lose another minute. This is all-time great stuff. The sound, the tone, there really is something special about Hankenstein. Charlie Haden had some great observations in last month's DownBeat, remarking on the beauty and inventiveness of Hank's use of silence...

"Hankenstein"????

But yes, the Mobley box is one of my favorite Mosaics without a doubt.

[Dan Gould]

For anyone on the fence or just waiting around for the Mosaic box, don't lose another minute. This is all-time great stuff. The sound, the tone, there really is something special about Hankenstein. Charlie Haden had some great observations in last month's DownBeat, remarking on the beauty and inventiveness of Hank's use of silence...

"Hankenstein"????

IIRC, that's a reference to what Dexter Gordon said about Hank in the liners to one of his LPs.

[ghost of miles]

For anyone on the fence or just waiting around for the Mosaic box, don't lose another minute. This is all-time great stuff. The sound, the tone, there really is something special about Hankenstein. Charlie Haden had some great observations in last month's DownBeat, remarking on the beauty and inventiveness of Hank's use of silence...

"Hankenstein"????

IIRC, that's a reference to what Dexter Gordon said about Hank in the liners to one of his LPs.

Yep--pretty sure Larry Kart quotes this in his Mobley essay as well.

Achtung Dr., just read that same quote myself in the Mobley Mosaic booklet--been revisiting that set. Can't believe it's still available (right?)...treasure-trove of great music.

[Chuck Nessa]

This came from a Kart interview with Dexter.

[DukeCity]

For anyone on the fence or just waiting around for the Mosaic box, don't lose another minute. This is all-time great stuff. The sound, the tone, there really is something special about Hankenstein. Charlie Haden had some great observations in last month's DownBeat, remarking on the beauty and inventiveness of Hank's use of silence...

"Hankenstein"????

But yes, the Mobley box is one of my favorite Mosaics without a doubt.

OK, I'm no longer on the fence. I just ordered the Mosaic box.

[sjarrell]

You're gonna love it!

[Larry Kart]

This came from a Kart interview with Dexter.

The full quote -- and I can re-create the moment in my head precisely -- is "Ah, yes, the Hankenstein. He was so hip."

Another remark from the same encounter, which might be rendered thus:

Did you ever

expect to see

a bebop tenor

saxophonist

looking down

on Michigan

Avenue

about to order

ca-viar from

room service?

[Larry Kart]

Did Dexter have an aura or what?

[srellek]

For anyone on the fence or just waiting around for the Mosaic box, don't lose another minute. This is all-time great stuff. The sound, the tone, there really is something special about Hankenstein. Charlie Haden had some great observations in last month's DownBeat, remarking on the beauty and inventiveness of Hank's use of silence...

"Hankenstein"????

But yes, the Mobley box is one of my favorite Mosaics without a doubt.

OK, I'm no longer on the fence. I just ordered the Mosaic box.

Solid, DukeCity. I'll be interested to hear your feedback, but think you will love this music.

Mobley is one of those few musicians/artists who with just a couple notes can really take me to another place. It's all about his subtlety; there are no grand gestures or exercises in technique, not the flash of Coltrane nor the force of Rollins (whom I love immensely). There is a quote by another neglected genius, Antoine de St. Exupery, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." For some art is an additive process. For others it is an subtractive one. And I usually find myself in the latter camp. Hank is a master of what he doesn't play. And I think a lot of people are sleeping on him. I think Miles had the vision to bring Hank into his group but for a bunch of reasons (mainly that Mobley cut a little too close to Miles' own style, to play dimestore Freud) he couldn't get excited about him the way he did about Trane. But that's another post...

Point is, for me there is something hard to define about his work where the sum of its parts - his round sound, his compositions, the atmosphere of his playing which can be at once jaunty and melancholy - makes for a greater whole.

Ah, Hank...

[bertrand]

I wonder what music the group that Mobley had with Muhal Abrams would play on gigs. Did Hank write any new music in Chicago? Exactly how long was he there?

This alleged French-Algerian war movie soundtrack will remain forever a mystery. It was a sore subject in France at the time and still is. Godard made a film that remained on the shelf for years. No Mobley music in it

[Gheorghe]

4 hours ago, bertrand said:

I wonder what music the group that Mobley had with Muhal Abrams would play on gigs. Did Hank write any new music in Chicago? Exactly how long was he there?

This alleged French-Algerian war movie soundtrack will remain forever a mystery. It was a sore subject in France at the time and still is. Godard made a film that remained on the shelf for years. No Mobley music in it

I´ve also read that and wondered what Music it could have been. Same with the movie score. Very strange. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I could swear that we went around and around on the two unreleased sessions Mobley was talking about and the consensus was that the "Algerian war" album was "Thinking of Home" and the "brass ensemble record" was "A Slice of the Top".

I do remember someone on the Blue Note bulletin board mentioning that he talked to guitarist Eddie Diehl, who claimed that he played on Mobley's unreleased "Algerian war" record. At the time, Diehl didn't even know that the recording he made with Mobley was released as "Thinking of Home". I don't remember if that person got a chance to get Diehl's thoughts on it later. In fact, I think the poster never returned before the board's demise. Since Diehl has died, I guess we'll never know.

[bertrand]

I doubt I would have agreed with this consensus as there are holes in this theory.

1. None of the music on Thinking of Home is thematically related to the war.

2. There was a film connected to it.

I am not saying it was not the Thinking record, I am just saying that I don't buy the argument that Hank got mixed up that much. He would have just made up this French-Algerian war angle? It does not line up with the rest.

Edited my response because I see that Hank was not claiming it was recorded in Paris.

I am still curious as to what music was played in Chicago.

Edited May 13, 2020 by bertrand

[Kevin Bresnahan]

But Hank claimed that the "Algerian war" recording was made for Blue Note and Michael Cuscuna found the original session notes. He documented every Blue Note recording session in his discography... well... except... according to the liner notes of the Mosaic box set of Woody Shaw's Muse recordings, there was a short period in 1965 where Lion supposedly gave back a few master tapes to people he recently recorded. But if Mobley was one of them, he had the masters so he should have said that in that interview.

I still think Hank messed up and "Thinking of Home" was the record he was talking about.

[JSngry]

Ok, about this Hank/Movie/Paris thing, let's read exactly what he says:

I wrote an entire movie in Paris. It was about the French-Algerian war, and I wrote Algerian music and French music, back and forth. Then I came back to New York and recorded it for Blue Note and they didn't put it out. I had some of the same people I was playing with in New York - Cedar, Billy, Bob Crenshaw, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard...

wow. There's a lot to unpack there, and none of it unpacks 100%. There's no record with that exact personnel, so is Hank saying that he did the music in Paris with those players? Or that he recorded it for BN with those players? Or just what?

I agree that the Thinking Of Home suite is a good consideration for what bits of the film score got recorded. I can hear that opening theme as being "Algerian" (at least to Hank's thinking), and he did make a point of recording that part again, as the intro to "Summertime" on Breakthrough, so obviously(?) it meant something to him.

But, where's the "French music"? "Home At Last"? Is that "French" to anybody's ears? Maybe, as in "Continental" or something?

And where's the players he mentions? The closest match is Caddy for Daddy, and...no. Not even accidentally. Were they ALL in Paris at the same time, that time? Or on ANY Hank record at the same time?

A scenario that almost lines up is that Hank was commissioned (or otherwise approached) tin Paris to write some music for a film that never got made/finished, and then he came home and didn't want it to go to waste, so he used some(?) of it for the "Thinking Of Home Suite". But not with the players he mentions.

He seemed pretty lucid, if a little bitter, in that interview, so thinking that he just got ALL confused doesn't seem a really safe assumption. But neither does the notion that there's this LOST SECRET HANK MOBLEY RECORD either. Wish John Litweiller could speak to what exactly was said...

One thing I could almost consider is that BYG was involved somewhere in all this...except not with all THOSE players.

Yeah, forever a mystery, unless and until.

 

 

[Dave James]

You have to wonder what Cuscuna might have to say about this.  None of those guys mentioned in Hank's quote are still around. 

[David Ayers]

 Do the notes in the new Mosaic have anything to say about this? 

[Dan Gould]

5 hours ago, David Ayers said:

 Do the notes in the new Mosaic have anything to say about this? 

I can't imagine it did since the Mosaic booklet is about the music included in the set, not some unquestionably confused statements by Hank in an interview that the author may or may not be aware of.  I think the real question here is what Michael has to say about this and how he interprets Hank's statements and the tapes he has seen.  

[JSngry]

I'd like to know what interactions Hank had with BYG while he was in Paris.

He did those two sessions with Archie Shepp for the label, so there was mutual contact.

And by many (all?) accounts, the BYG guys were a, shall we say, "fast bunch". So maybe they talked him up about doing a film score?

[David Ayers]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

I'd like to know what interactions Hank had with BYG while he was in Paris.

He did those two sessions with Archie Shepp for the label, so there was mutual contact.

And by many (all?) accounts, the BYG guys were a, shall we say, "fast bunch". So maybe they talked him up about doing a film score?

 

You’ve got the new set, I think Jim. Have you checked the booklet to see if it mentions the film etc.?

[JSngry]

21 minutes ago, David Ayers said:

 

You’ve got the new set, I think Jim. Have you checked the booklet to see if it mentions the film etc.?

Nothing past what is mentioned in the Litweiler piece, almost verbatim.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder about a BYG connection to this "film score". BN didn't really seem to keep tabs on Hank while he was out of the country, I don't see any "Hank Mobley appears courtesy of..." on those Shepp sides he's on.

So maybe instead of continuing the deead-end that Blue Note is in regards to this mystery, maybe redirect towards BYG? And good luck with that?

[bertrand]

If Hank was asked to do a film score about Algeria, Shepp would have been the hook up. There is another Algerian thing that Shepp was involved with that has surfaced, waiting for more details when the researcher can get back to doing her research. I will email Shepp's wife.