Larry Young

Mother Ship is the last session Larry Young recorded for Blue Note. Cut on 7 February 1969, it stayed in the vaults for eleven years and was first released in 1980 in the LT series, the label's programme of unissued sessions, produced for release by Michael Cuscuna. Young wrote all five pieces. The album closes the run of records in which he moved the Hammond B-3 far beyond soul jazz, and it catches him just before his move into the first fusion bands.

The quartet was recorded at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs by Rudy Van Gelder, with Francis Wolff producing. Lee Morgan plays trumpet, Herbert Morgan tenor saxophone and Eddie Gladden drums. Herbert Morgan and Gladden were already part of Young's circle and had both played on his 1967 album Contrasts. There is no bassist, so the low end falls to the organ, which gives the group a lean and very mobile sound.

The title track and Trip Merchant, which takes almost thirteen minutes of the second side, are the most exploratory pieces, with long, restless solos over Gladden's drumming and Young's churning chords. Lee Morgan sounds unusually free in this setting, well away from the hard bop he is best known for. Street Scene, Visions and Love Drops sit firmly in the pocket instead, soulful grooves that recall where the organ came from in jazz.

Within months Young was playing in the Tony Williams Lifetime, whose debut Emergency! came out in 1969, and he also took part in the sessions for Miles Davis's Bitches Brew. He died in March 1978, aged 37, so like Lee Morgan he did not live to see this album in print.

This stereo Tone Poet edition, released in April 2026, was produced by Joe Harley and mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original analogue master tapes. It is pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI and comes in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket, with liner notes by Cuscuna.