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Hank Mobley In Europe 1968 - 70


sidewinder

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Just came back from a Hank Mobley tribute tonight in D.C., led by vocalist George V. Johnson (who's been working with Don Sickler on this project).

George sang with a crackerjack quartet and occasionally was joined by a 6-person choir. The band was Fred Foss (ts), Harrry Appelman (p), Ephraim Wrofolk (sp?), and Nasar Abadey (d). They played about a dozen tunes (plus a couple tangentially related to Mobley), including some obscurities such as 'Looking East'.

I need to brush up on my Hank - it's been a while since I listened to him.

Bertrand.

Edited by bertrand
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I think the answer is "No" RT.

Why not? :huh:

I see an opening for you RT. If you see a commercial opportunity, put up the bucks and cash in.

Oops. When I brought this thread up, I didn't realize I was the last person to post in it - nor that my (last) post was about unreleased live material. I thought I was just bringing up an interesting old thread.

My "why not" comment was in response to what I thought was someone saying "No" to the idea of bringing up the topic in general. (I had only skimmed the first post in the thread, which I remembered as being quite interesting.)

Ooops. :blush:

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Great article. Thanks for sharing. Also, wonderul story from Brownie. Brownie, did you ever see him play in a club environment in Europe?

Also, would love to hear these Montremarte tapes. They must not be too rare as a several posts allude to hearing them.

Mobley's story is all too common. Echoes my recent conversation with Hank Crawford, who's only played 3 times in the last 2 years he said. Some of it's due to some health complications. The other reason is, in his words..."No clubs to play in. The scene is clean." John Patton had the same problem. I talked to George Braith last week and was lamenting his lack of work. His words..."Hey, it doesn't bother me. I play 10 sets a day in my basement."

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Also, wonderul story from Brownie.  Brownie, did you ever see him play in a club environment in Europe?

Unfortunately, that was my only encounter with Mobley.

I was pretty busy at the time with my job and never caught him live when he was in town. Also the club gigs were pretty rare for him then!

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  • 3 years later...

brownie your story is amazing. hank said you better not come in the hospital and it was over-- can you recount some points hank touched on in your talk-- what was specificially grinding his gears?

Ditto Chewy. Guy, I can't believe you were there when history was in the making. Thank you again for your personal account! I would also love to hear your chats with Hank, if its ok to share.

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I recounted all I could remember from that evening in my original post on this thread. Please remember it happened 40 years ago - almost to the day - August 12, 1969.

I did not have a tape recorder with me that time.

I had a tape recorder when I interviewed a number of musicians (including Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell, Lee Morgan, Charles Mingus among others) in the late 50's and 60's. Some were published in the French review Jazz Magazine, some were not as was the case of the Bud Powell interview because Buttercup kept interrupting whenever Bud started gathering his thoughts which were pretty confused that day!

The Mingus interview was available until recently on the internet.

All those tapes were piled in a room of my mother's Paris apartment. They were lost when she moved out of the place and junked those tapes!

As for why Mobley asked me not to enter the place he was staying, that's because the Hospital where he was allowed a room dealt with gerontology patients which could not be disturbed. The Hospital is still where it was, quite a nice place but with a 'no public entrance' sign at the entrance gate!

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They were lost when she moved out of the place and junked those tapes!

Oh no - what a tragedy ! Such is life... :(

Reminds me of my folks accidentally wiping a heap of BBC jazz broadcasts I had on VHS including Jazz 625s, the Swedish jazz film 'Sven Klang's Combo' and film of Lester Bowies Brass Fantasy at Bath Festival with footage of me in the audience standing on seat. Of course, none of that was ever repeated.

Edited by sidewinder
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what did lee morgan discuss in his interview?

Mobley was 40 years ago. Morgan was 50 years ago so my memories are even less reliable.

He was 20, I was one year younger. The interview took place at the hotel across the street from the Club Saint-Germain and I was given a very short time to interview all five Jazz Messengers (Morgan, Golson, Timmons, Merritt and Blakey) before they started their first et at the Club. All five were waiting their turn to answer some questions. And all five were most charming.

The interview was published in 'Jazz Magazine' at the time.

I enjoyed the music much better than the interview.

Edited by brownie
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They were lost when she moved out of the place and junked those tapes!

Oh no - what a tragedy ! Such is life... :(

Reminds me of my folks accidentally wiping a heap of BBC jazz broadcasts I had on VHS including Jazz 625s, the Swedish jazz film 'Sven Klang's Combo' and film of Lester Bowies Brass Fantasy at Bath Festival with footage of me in the audience standing on seat. Of course, none of that was ever repeated.

The tapes were a small part of my possessions (including quite a number of old Down Beats, Mad magazines, copies of the Paris Review and assorted magazines) that took the same path :o

They had been stored there for lack of space in my place!

My mother's excuse was that I was not in Paris at the time (was on assignment outside France and she could not reach me in those pre-digital days)

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  • 3 years later...

Spent a few hours in the family cellar - it's a jungle down there :rmad: - in the hope of recovering various objects that I had not seen in years.

Managed to locate various film negatives from a long lost era.

Here are a couple of images I found (photos taken during the Paris Jazz Festival in November 1968 backstage at the Salle Pleyel:

Hank Mobley sharing a joke with Art Blakey. In the back Dizzy Gillespie talks to actor-dancer James Campbell. Lady at left might be Elvin Jones' then companion Keiko.

000011pn.jpg

(Copyright: Guy Kopelowicz)

From left: Sahib Shihab, Elvin Jones, ?, Hank Mobley and Art Blakey

000002j.jpg

(Copyright: Guy Kopelowicz)

Mobley did not play that evening but seemed to have a good time!

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