Hank Mobley

CD version. Workout catches Hank Mobley in the most fertile stretch of his Blue Note career, the early sixties, when he recorded one strong hard bop album after another. Cut in March 1961 and released in 1962, it is a quintet date that adds the guitar of Grant Green to Mobley's tenor. That pairing gives the record its particular colour.

The session took place on 26 March 1961 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, with Rudy Van Gelder at the controls. Alongside Green, the rhythm section is about as strong as hard bop offered at the time: Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Four of the five pieces are Mobley originals, written as open vehicles for improvisation rather than as elaborate heads.

The title track sets an energetic pace and runs to ten minutes, long enough for every soloist to stretch out over Jones's crisp, driving time. Uh Huh is longer still, a loose, loping groove where Mobley's round, slightly veiled tone and his elastic phrasing come through clearly. Green answers in single-note lines with a horn player's sense of space, while Kelly keeps the harmony bright underneath. The only standard, The Best Things in Life Are Free, is also the shortest track, taken at a light bounce, and Greasin' Easy closes the album in a relaxed mood.

Leonard Feather, who wrote the original liner notes, once called Mobley the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone. He meant it as a measure of sound rather than rank: a voice placed between the weight of John Coltrane and the lightness of Stan Getz. Scott Yanow later listed Workout among his essential hard bop recordings.

This is the Japanese Ultimate High Quality CD from Universal Music Japan, catalogue number UCCQ-9709, issued in 2024 with the remastering credited to Kevin Gray. It keeps the original five-track programme and comes in a jewel case with obi strip.