Good Picken's – Hank Mobley

Hank Mobley wrote many songs with specific players in mind—often cleverly titled—and Good Picken's, his feature for George Benson, is a fine example. This song is full of fills for the soloist, showcasing the guitar's role as a solo instrument in a hard bop setting.

The head largely alternates between two measures of melody and two measures of solo, broken up by a solo break in the last two measures of the 14-measure bridge. The A sections are 16 measures long and feature angular melody phrases that rise in fourths—a similar "bag" to Mobley's earlier song The Break Through. On the bridge the melody phrases are simpler and more bluesy.

The changes are quite simple, almost modal with eight measures of B♭7 at the beginning. D♭m6 in the 11th and 12th measures, a passing chord preceded by C7 and followed by Cm7, can be thought of as G♭7/D♭.

Though recorded as a guitar feature, this song works just as well with a different solo instrument playing the fills. Alternatively, these fills can be broken up with multiple melody instruments trading.

"Reach Out" was recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs.

For more from this album, check out Lookin' East and Up, Over, And Out. Good Picken's is Hank's only song written as a guitar feature, though he used guitar on three other albums: "Workout" with Grant Green, "Third Season" with Sonny Greenwich, and "Thinking Of Home" with Eddie Diehl. The angular, fourths-based melody of this song is also suggestive of trumpeter Woody Shaw's distinctive style.

On this briskly tipping track from Hank Mobley's record "Reach Out," George Benson certainly delivers some good picking. Cutting loose on the head, Benson weaves and bobs between Mobley and trumpeter Woody Shaw with intricate single note lines. For the A and C sections, he punctuates the horns' written two-bar phrases with his own two-bar solo flights. On the B section, he continues to solo around the melody before lighting up the two-measure break that leads into C.

Just three days before this track was recorded, Benson played on Miles Davis' "Miles in the Sky," where he can be heard on Paraphernalia. Though similar in their quick tempo, Paraphernalia and Good Picken's occupy different stylistic realms; the former has a much looser arrangement with more harmonic freedom than the latter's tighter form and changes. However, Benson shines on both as a versatile sideman. While he freely interprets an ostinato-like figure on Paraphernalia with octaves, adding to the background texture, on Good Picken's he asserts himself as the main feature, soloing throughout the head around Mobley's written melody.