Jazz Articles about Harold Mabern

Lee Morgan: The Gigolo

by Samuel Chell
February 26, 2007

Lee Morgan The Gigolo Blue Note Records 2007

As we observe the 35th anniversary (Feb. 19) of the death of the talented trumpeter who would also become the major player in one of American music's more noteworthy Frankie and Johnny stories, the title of this Lee Morgan session and several others (The Tom Cat, The Rajah, The Procrastinator) take on a note of eponymous self-characterization, if not ghoulishly ironic subtext. Regrettable or not, the ...

Harold Mabern: Blessed

by Terrell Kent Holmes
December 21, 2006

Harold Mabern, one of jazz's most enduring and dazzlingly skilled pianists, was born in Memphis, a city that produced saxophonists George Coleman and Charles Lloyd, trumpeter Booker Little and pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr. Mabern started out as a drummer but, under Newborn's influence, switched to piano. During his over half-century on the scene as sideman and leader, he has played with such greats as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, Blue Mitchell and Sarah Vaughan. He has been a member ...

Lee Morgan: The Gigolo

by Chris May
February 18, 2006

Hard bop's baddest trumpeter, Lee Morgan, may never quite have topped his iconic '63 masterpiece, The Sidewinder, but he came pretty damn close on a couple of occasions. The Gigolo is one of them, and it's been reissued as part of the ongoing Rudy Van Gelder remaster series. The album's menacing, visceral vibe has never sounded more powerful or engaging.

With The Sidewinder ringing cash registers across the US and Europe, there was a temptation for Morgan and Blue Note ...

Harold Mabern: A Few Miles From Memphis

by Russ Musto
December 26, 2005

The relative dearth of dates as a leader by pianist Harold Mabern is an enigma--one made even more puzzling by the quality of this disc, a reissue of his first two records. Mabern was already in his 30s, possessing a well developed style, when he recorded these albums in 1968, and thanks to his considerable abilities as a composer and arranger, the tunes are superior to most of those heard on the many Prestige blowing sessions of this era. The ...

Harold Mabern and Eric Alexander: The Art of Duo

by AAJ Staff
May 4, 2005

When 68-year-old pianist Harold Mabern performs with 36-year-old tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander as a duo, their age difference might lead those in the audience to assume a mentor-apprentice relationship exists between the two musicians. And that assumption is correct... up to a point.

It's true that Alexander was a student of Mabern's at William Patterson College in New Jersey in the late 1980s. But according to Mabern, he and Alexander are more than musical equals these days. In fact, Mabern ...

Harold Mabern: A Few Miles From Memphis

by Derek Taylor
July 2, 2004

Harold Mabern A Few Miles From Memphis Prestige 2004

A transplanted Chicagoan by way of Memphis, pianist Harold Mabern gigged with an incredible array of jazz talent during his youth. His colleagues, recounted in the liners to this recent two-fer, read like a VIP list of hard and post-bop talent: Miles Davis, Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Frank Strozier, Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Art Farmer... I could easily go ...

Harold Mabern: Maya With Love

by Mark Corroto
June 1, 2000

There are few pianists to with whom you directly associate their hometown like Harold Mabern. Rarely is his name mentioned without stating Memphis. I guess it is a tribute to the city and to Mabern’s mentor Phineas Newborn Jr. Mabern and fellow pianists Mulgrew Miller, Geoff Keezer, and James Williams paid tribute to Newborn with their Contemporary Piano Ensemble recordings The Key Players (DIW Columbia 1993) and Four Pianos For Phineas (Evidence 1996). Like Newborn, Harold Mabern has a fantastic ...