Hank Mobley

LP version. A Caddy for Daddy is a sextet date from the middle of Hank Mobley's long Blue Note run. By then the tenor saxophonist had been recording for the label for a full decade, as leader and as sideman. The record opens with one of the groove tunes Blue Note was known for in the mid-1960s. The rest is harder, more knotted hard bop, and four of the five pieces are Mobley's own.

The band met at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on December 18, 1965. Mobley chose players Blue Note listeners knew well. Lee Morgan is on trumpet and Curtis Fuller on trombone, completing a three-horn front line. The rhythm section is McCoy Tyner on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. Alfred Lion produced, and Ira Gitler wrote the original liner notes.

The title track rides on a relaxed boogaloo beat from Higgins. Its catchy theme runs for more than nine minutes and opens up into long solo space for the horns. The Morning After is a churning minor waltz of almost the same length, the most brooding thing on the record. On the second side, Ace Deuce Trey charges ahead through unexpected harmonic turns. 3rd Time Around closes the set, a bright swinger that keeps the band alert with its shifting meters. The one outside tune is Venus Di Mildew by Wayne Shorter, which fits the group easily.

What holds the date together is the ease between musicians who had crossed paths on many Blue Note sessions, with Mobley's warm, rounded tone at the centre. AllMusic rates the album four and a half stars. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (2008) gives it three out of four.

This 2023 edition belongs to the Blue Note Tone Poet series. It is stereo, produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI and housed in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket.