The Hank Mobley Sextet with Shafi Hadi.

Tonight's Jazz Feature is a fine album by the "welterweight champion of the tenor saxophone", Hank Mobley. The music typifies New York Jazz of the mid-50's and is timeless and always contemporary sounding. The people involved are Mobley and trumpeter Bill Hardman who was working at the time with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Paul Chambers and ace drummer Arthur Taylor. What makes this session very special in the presence of alto and tenor saxophonist Shafi Hadi (born Curtis Porter). Hadi's unique style on both horns makes this session one of a kind.. It is also the only known recording outside of the Charles Mingus fold by Hadi. Hadi was with Mingus from 1956 to 1958 and is on almost all of Mingus' records of that time. Hadi essentially disappeared from the playing and recording scene after 1959. So anything by him is valuable and as this one is a non-Mingus date, it is important. So it's the Hank Mobley Sextet with Shafi Hadi tonight as our Jazz Feature.