Hank Mobley – Soul Station (Black Vinyl)

‘Soul Station’ is an album by jazz saxophonist Hank Mobley that was released in 1960. It is considered by many critics to be his finest album. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio and rooted in the hard bop style, Mobley’s quartet features Art Blakey (his past bandleader in the Jazz Messengers), and two bandmates from his time in the Miles Davis Quintet, Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers. The album’s bookends are two standards, ‘Remember’ by Irving Berlin and ‘If I Should Lose You’ by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin. Between these standards are four new Mobley compositions, featuring the bluesy title track and the uptempo ‘This I Dig of You.’ Jazz critic Bob Blumenthal explains how the album is understood to be, for Mobley, what ‘Saxophone Colossus’ or ‘Giant Steps’ were for Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane. AllMusic awarded the album with five stars.