Hank Mobley Analysis

Scott Murphy Negotiated Project (10 Credits) Aim: I intend to transcribe and, subsequently, analyse saxophonist Hank Mobley's improvisation on the song 'Remember from the 1960 LP 'Soul Station' with particular attention to be paid to his harmonic, rhythmic and motivic improvisations throughout this solo and why it is a work of great significance fifty years after it's release. Process: Through a routine of internalising Mobley's solo then writing it down on manuscript before analysing it with reference to a number of important theoretical and historical texts I feel as though I will have an fundamental understanding of the source material. Execution: Along with this analytical paper is an attached manuscript of Mobley's improvisation (used throughout) in Concert pitch with chord symbols included. There will also be an oral seminar style presentation utilising the computer program 'Prezi' wherein i'll discuss portions of the material examined here with the addition of audio examples. (date and time pending)

An Analysis of Hank Mobley's Improvisation on Irving Berlin's “Remember” Background Hank Mobley was born Henry Mobley in Eastman Georgia on the 7 th of July 1930. He grew up within a musical family in Newark and at the age of 16 his uncle bought him his first saxophone during a period of illness which confined him to his home. This proved to be his calling and very quickly the self taught Mobley found himself hired by Paul Gayten following a recommendation from (a future) trumpet legend Clifford Brown. With a growing admiration for the melodic approach of Lester Young, Mobley enjoyed playing with contemporaries of his hero in this period and soon after he was given a call to play in Max Roach's band with Miles Davis. The distinction of this gig subsequently led to him performing with the Ellington Orchestra (despite his lack of ability on the clarinet), Dizzy Gillespie and Horace Silver's group co-led by Art Blakey which became the ground-breaking Jazz Messengers. This group paved a whole new path of jazz music termed Hardbop. Categorised by blues inflections, sophisticated improvisations and, at times an underlying funk groove, Hard-bop proved to be a landmark for the development of jazz following Be-bop. Albums such as Moanin', Blue Train and Somethin' Else are widely remembered and cited as some of the best examples of the genre. For me, however, none of these albums swings as hard or grooves as well as Hank Mobely's Soul Station which is why this album and Hank's 'Remember' improvisation has to be my personal choice for this study. I first got Soul Station when I was beginning to listen to jazz properly at about the age of sixteen after seeing the striking cover which was so obviously steeped in record company Blue Note's signature style; with a blue-tinted black and white photograph of Mobley holding his saxophone with one hand looking overjoyed. His gleeful expression along with the fact that Art Blakey's name also appears on the cover was enough for me to take the risk and make this the second purchase I could afford that week after also buying John Coltrane's Blue Train record. Through chance I ended up listening to Blue Train first which captivated me unlike any album I'd heard before and knocked any ideas I had about listening to Soul Station right out of my head. The joyous saxophone wielding blue-tinted man had to make do with collecting dust on my desk for around a month before I re-discovered and finally listened to what he had to be so pleased with. Very quickly I realised that pleased he definitely should have been. Soul Station is an album which is often overlooked when discussions of the greatest jazz albums ever are had. Perhaps there is justification for this to a point. For me, there's a track or two which aren't quite up to the same standard as others and maybe the album doesn't cover a lot of ground compositionally but I intend to show, through analysis of 'Remember' that Hank is one of the most talented and fundamentally model examples of a jazz musician. As a saxophonist, the phrasing and agility with which he saunters through chord changes is inspiring for me as it doubtless is for thousands of other saxophonists and will continue to be for many years to come.

Analysis *all examples are within the key of Ab major Mobley's entire improvisation is very much example after example of melodies with a note hardly ever put wrong. He combines long phrases with short motifs to develop ideas within a short space of time before continuing and starting on a whole new concept within the realms of Remember's harmonic material. Immediately from the solo break (the two bar period between the final A of the melody and the beginning of Mobley's solo where he is totally unaccompanied) there is a clear indication of key centre, movement and a remarkably strong time-feel.

This solo break says a lot about what is to come in the rest of the improvisation: clear melodic ideas; a hard swing feel; intelligent use of chromaticisms within the context of related chord scales and a forward motion pursuing the next set of material. Following this he leads into four bars of melodic material which showcases the interesting chord sequence Mobley's altered the original 'changes' into for his arrangement. Using a descending bass-line from Db → C → B → Bb as a basis he's turned a very mundane IV – III-7 V7/IV – IV – V7/II chord sequence into IV – V7#11/VI – subV7/II – V7/V which offers a plethora of interesting material for him to use.

By using the 3rd of each chord as an anchor tone he builds a phrase and repeats it for each new bar within this first four. His note choices here demonstrate his highly attuned sense of harmonic clarity with key notes from each of the chord's related chord scales chosen to define them harmonically as well as construct this phrase which he rhythmically repeats with alterations. I view the evolution of this phrase as being almost akin to 'negative' motivic development (in as much as the original phrase seems to diminish in complexity which is undoubtedly progression despite the end result being more simple than the source material it was born from). The placement of this material is interesting when considered and compared with selections of his improvisation further on in the recording over the same sequence of chords:

Clearly Mobley has earmarked these chords in the practise room as ones he can create interesting phrases around and build on. What's also evident when looking at the improvisation as a whole is that these phrases rarely get developed past the point when the Bb-7 chord arrives on bar five of the A section. This is perhaps one of the most fundamental ways in which Mobley differs from other saxophonists of the time such as John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins both of whom would regularly take a theme or motif and expand upon it for minutes. In a style typical of the 'Hard Bop' genre, within which Soul Station is normally categorised, Mobley's phrases tend to be a mix of 'Be-Bop' and 'Blues' language but with the occasional display of both rhythmic and harmonic conceptualisation which would've been more at home within the recordings of the 'West Coast' school of jazz musicians.

By playing notes such as the B and A on the Ab7 chord Mobley is clearly displaying his harmonic interest in the altered mode over dominant chords. Although traditionally used on the dominant chord within a minor V7 – I- sequence, Mobley utilises it just as well here in a major context. The rhythmic interest of the bars in question here is vast with syncopated anticipations, triplets running into quavers and phrases being played over the bar-line to leave a deliberate sense of ambiguity about where the beats lie. I think the phrase from the end of bar eighty one to the beginning of eighty three is a bold and extremely interesting one; by using the Ab as an pivot tone (the 11th of Eb-7 and the root of Ab7) to build a phrase using the chromatic notes either side of it is in itself an adventurous phrase but to compliment it by playing various types of triplets subdivided over the swing rhythmic feel is audacious! He punctuates the phrase with a smooth and easy run of semiquavers which intentionally stick within the sound of Db Ionian to give the listener a decidedly easier piece of music to grasp ahold of. This level of rhythmic complexity is saved by Mobley and only given a couple of places within this improvisation to really be the focal point. One of my favourite phrases in the entire improvisation occurs going into the 3 rd chorus when he again choses the triplet as a manipulative rhythmic device to obscure the bar-line and the safety of resolving back to the home key at the top of a new chorus. Very few jazz musicians truly displayed such successful rhythmic phrases as this one:

Everything from his bold entry on beat two to the exuberance with which he chooses to play the triplets is absolutely mesmerising for me. That the traditional rest point into a new chorus is completely ignored and influenced to the stage where it's unrecognisable as a resolution point is almost a unique example in this improvisation which is perhaps why I enjoy it so much. He allosng the listener to catch their breath and rest on the last two beats of the 2 nd bar but this phrase, on the whole, is a widely disorientating experience which introduces a new type of interest right at the beginning of the last form. Generally though, rather than rhythmic influence, he uses feel and augmentation of where the beat he's playing is compared to the rhythm section to provide more expression within time-feel. As a player, Mobley tends to play somewhere between right on the beat and slightly behind depending on what sort of a phrase he's playing. In the above example (and in almost all of his semi-quaver lines) he is absolutely matching metronomically with the drums. His frequent use of triplets either ascending or descending at the beginning of phrases are sometimes approximations at a triplet rather than a pure one; he's using the effect of racing up to the first 'real' note of the phrase to build excitement and anticipation. These occasions are rare as opposed to his more frequent use of pulling the phrase behind the beat; particularly with swung quavers. The first couple of bars in the second chorus give us a good display of this sort of feel:

The written example doesn't really say enough if we're discussing the feel of these notes unfortunately. Even if I had put more forms of articulation or worked out the exceedingly complex subdivisions of the quavers above it still wouldn't quite be how he played them. This is where his feel really comes out. Of the top tenor saxophonists there is a range in feel from guys like Dexter Gordon who tended to play quavers so behind the beat that he was almost a quaver out to Coltrane who was generally so on top of the beat he was almost ahead of it. Mobley seems to take inspiration from both schools of feel with a world class ability to adjust his feel mid-phrase. As I said above this is quite a hard phenomenon to quantify which forces somebody transcribing to have to rely on vague instructions such as “Lazy”:

Or “behind”:

As incommunicative as this kind of phrasing is when seen written down, on tape it's exceptionally expressive for a listener. With Mobley coming from an R'n'B background this type of locution isn't surprising but it is handled with intelligent diligence so as to remain an engaging brief moment to contrast the rest of the improvisation. His use of ghost notes but almost undisguised (in that they're still very much audible) as if he's played them with only 30% of the force compared to the rest, influences the feel of a quaver note line hugely. In the example below the notes which have an arrow above them are notes which receive the 'ghosting but not quite' treatment from Mobley:

Coming on the 'and of' four and three respectively, they are almost used more as a rhythmic motion device to push onwards than as fundament notes within the phrase. Many other saxophonists ghost notes in long quaver lines but I think i've yet to hear a saxophonist who uses this 'not quite' technique which is employed so frequently and effectively as in this improvisation. A common yet highly developed part of Mobley's improvisations is his ability to effectively resolve to a new chord with the use of enclosing chromatic notes in three or four note cells. A running theme of chromatic approach notes resolving to a chord tone on beat one of the bar is prevalent throughout his extemporization on the harmony.

The above examples are by no means an exhaustive list for this feature in this improvisation but I think that they do display why Mobley's phrases almost always seem to lead to the absolutely correct tonal sound when entering a strong chord on beat one. This is very much 'Be-Bop' language which isn't surprising given Mobley's association with players such as Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach and his long term admiration for the 'Bop' era's defining saxophonist Charlie Parker. Taken into context of what sort of language Mobley is using around these 'Bop' tendencies you start to see where Mobley's playing was going at this time of his life. An excellent showcase of both modern and traditional language which Mobley deals with is this example from a particularly dense phrase in the 2nd chorus:

Beginning this phrase with as quintessentially 'Be-Bop' a phrase as you can think of (he's using the Bb BeBop Scale) Mobley takes the phrase into new territory by implying F Lydian Dominant over the 2nd half of the bar to lead into Bb-7. The thing that makes Mobley so good in this situation is how listenable the phrase is; this isn't a Coltrane-esque substitution which almost tries to offend the ears but it is playing a collection of notes for calculated effect in order to make the release of the resolution point that much more resonant to the listener. Hank Mobley's improvisation on 'Remember' is one of my favourite all time solos and I can quite literally listen to it on repeat (as I have done on numerous occasions in collating and explaining this material). His exceptional ability to play melodic phrases which seldom repeat is almost unparalleled in improvised music and the amount of jazz clichés which have come out of this solo alone say much about the sort of musician Hank Mobley was. The fact that he can create such melodious music of great interest without having to go above Eb (a classic saxophone trick to artificially create excitement at decidedly uninteresting moments – though not always!) is testament to the quality of his ideas and genuine virtuosic musical mind. Through his sound (all at once powerfully assertive and delicately velvety) and technique he's able to convey so many expressions and evocative narratives within the context of simple harmonic language that I am, and will continue to be, wonderfully taken aback every time I hear one of his ingeniously constructed choruses. While probably not as obviously influential as Stan Getz, Charlie Parker or Lester Young, I like to believe that the music Hank Mobley created has had a major impact (directly or otherwise) on generations of jazz musicians because of his language, feel and the many other theoretical subjects i've brought up here. As well as that I think he embodies the spirit of the modern day jazz musician in his creative take on established musical ideas to invent new concepts; the style with which he strived to become the player that he wanted to be through his use of melodic and rhythmic ideas and by the fact that he played with hundreds of musicians on hundreds of gigs before he even got near to what he was aiming for. Where he ended up musically with this improvisation is what impresses me most about Hank Mobley and why I believe he'll remain an inspiration.

Bibliography Recordings Mobley, H., 1960, Soul Station, Blue Note Records Mobley, H., 1960, Roll Call, Blue Note Records Mobley, H., 1953, The Max Roach Quartet Featuring Hank Mobley, Debut Mobley, H., 1954, Horace Silver And The Jazz Messengers, Blue Note Records Mobley, H., 1961, Workout, Blue Note Records Davis, M., 1961, Someday My Prince Will Come, Columbia Coltrane, J., 1960 (released 1961), My Favourite Thing, Atlantic Records Coltrane, J., 1960 (released 1964), My Favourite Things, Atlantic Records Gordon, D., (1962), GO!, Blue Note Records Young, L., (1952), Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio, Hi-Fi Recording Getz, S., (1958), Jazz Giants, Verve Records Parker, C., (1949), The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve, Verve Books Ansell, D., 2008 Workout: The Music of Hank Mobley, Northway Publications Resoenthal, D.H., 1992 Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965, Oxford University Press Levine, M., 1995, The Jazz Theory Book, Sher Music Co. Berliner, P.F., 1994, Thinking In Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, The University of Chicago Press Other Sources FARLEY, Jeff (2008) 'Making America’s Music: Jazz History and the Jazz Preservation Act' University of Glasgow Thesis Author unknown, 1973, Hank Mobley Interview Downbeat Magazine Interview [available online] http://www.hankmobley.net/biography/mobley-interview/ and http://www.angelfire.com/retro/cult/cult/music/mobley_downbeat.htm [first accessed 27/12/13] Liebman, L., Year of publication unclear, JAZZ RHYTHM by DAVID LIEBMAN [online] http://www.daveliebman.com/earticles2.php?DOC_INST=8 [first accessed 21/12/13]