Hank Mobley and his All Stars – Blue Note 1544

I think I’ve hit a wall.

I love hard bop. I love Blue Note. But all of a sudden, the thrill is gone.

This week, I’m listening to Hank Mobley and his All Stars, a 1957 album that could never be accused of false advertising. This truly is an all-star hard bop band: Hank Mobley on tenor, Milt Jackson on vibes, Horace Silver on piano, Art Blakey on drums and Doug Watkins on bass. This is, for all intents and purposes, a Jazz Messengers album.

So why doesn’t it move me?

Maybe it’s Mobley. The guy is absolutely everywhere in 1950s and ‘60s Blue Notes. Leonard Feather, in his liner notes to All Stars, says “Hank Mobley shows up at Blue Note almost as regularly as the mailman.” And that was in 1957, before Mobley turned out a gazillion other Blue Note albums. So maybe it’s over familiarity that leaves me feeling meh.

I like soulful, toe-tapping bop. Mobley does that, but sometimes it’s just run-of-the-mill. The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide, for example, says Mobley is “a dependable but not always inspired tenorist” and “the majority of his work is professional rather than memorable.”

That’s how I feel about Hank Mobley and his All Stars. It’s solid – five cuts of unimpeachable hard bop. Well, four cuts of bop and one lovely ballad. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this album, but it doesn’t really stand out, either. I’ve heard it before.

The one exception: Milt Jackson. I’m not a huge vibes fan, but it’s the one thing that makes this album feel different. It’s not that Jackson is doing anything original here. But in the context of an otherwise ordinary bop session, the vibes are like a splash of cold water on a ho-hum day. Refreshing.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I need a break. Maybe I’ve finally listened to too many 1950s Blue Notes. Hank Mobley and his All Stars isn’t a bad album. But there are better.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Easy to find

Cost: $4.45

Lee Morgan Indeed! – Blue Note 1538

The first time Lee Morgan entered a recording studio, he was just 18 years old and he was leading his own band. More impressive, that band included soon-to-be-legendary pianist Horace Silver and drummer Philly Joe Jones.

This is the CD of that 1956 recording session. While the players were great, the music is merely ordinary – which isn’t too surprising given the tender age of the leader. Indeed! is standard Blue Note hard bop by the guys who would, in various combinations, become the label’s mainstays.

That’s not a knock. This is a good record, and if you’re a fan of hard bop, as I am, you’ll like it. Morgan is very much the product of Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro. He sounds a bit like both, and he even played Dizzy’s trademark horn with a bent bell.

The other horn player is a virtual unknown – saxman Clarence Sharpe, known to friends as C. Sharpe, or C#. In many numbers, he sounds like a Charlie Parker knockoff – again, no big surprise for a young alto player in 1956, a year after Bird’s death. In Sharpe’s 1990 obituary, The New York Times called him “the missing link between Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman.” But that was later in life. Here, he’s all bebop.

Same with Lee Morgan, who had a long and legendary career on Blue Note, recording something like 25 albums. This is the first, and it’s no fault of the young 18-year-old that it’s not yet as memorable as 1963’s The Sidewinder. It’s solid, enjoyable, if unoriginal, hard bop.

A couple of side notes: First, though the album has only one ballad, “The Lady,” it is sweet and tender and nearly all Morgan. A real standout. Second, the cut “Gaza Strip” has absolutely no hints of Middle Eastern or Arabic influences. Wonder where the title came from. Finally, though Horace Silver is a member of the band, he mostly stays in the background, taking a handful of perfunctory solos.

All in all, a solid freshman outing, offering the promise of even better things to come.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Many copies, new and used

Cost: $5 used, $10 new