Hank Mobley was an outstanding but under-appreciated tenor saxman. I knew him as a sideman with Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, and Miles, but had never heard any of his sessions as a bandleader. Then I got Soul Station for Amy this Christmas. Damn, this is an amazing album. As the only horn in the (relatively rare) quartet, Mobley shines, but he does so in an understated way--no superfluous flash, just solid brilliance.
Mobley reminds me a little of Dexter Gordon here, but while Gordon found a way to keep going after jazz receded from popular consciousness, Mobley seems to have faded away, recording just two albums in the '70s. He apparently died in obscurity in '86, and he deserves better--check out his catalog.
(Speaking of which, I just came across the Jazz Discography Project, an incredible resource lovingly maintained by Nobuaki Togashi, Kohji 'Shaolin' Matsubayashi, Masayuki Hatta. Thank you, thank you, thank you.)
