Dig Dis is a hard bop composition by Hank Mobley, one of the more than 140 original tunes he wrote during his prolific years as a leader and sideman from the mid-1950s through 1970. The tune was recorded for Mobley's 1960 album Soul Station on Blue Note Records, a session that brought together Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Soul Station is widely regarded as Mobley's masterpiece, and Dig Dis contributes to the album's program of four Mobley originals balanced against two standards. The composition reflects the accessible, melodically grounded hard bop style that characterized Mobley's writing throughout his career. Leonard Feather famously described Mobley as the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone, occupying a distinctive space between the aggressive intensity of John Coltrane and the lighter approach of players in the Lester Young tradition. Dig Dis is not among the most widely covered tunes in the jazz repertoire, remaining primarily a piece studied and performed by musicians drawn to Mobley's deep catalog. On AllSolos, transcriptions are available from the 1960 Soul Station session, capturing solos by Mobley on tenor saxophone and Kelly on piano.
