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Harold Mabern: Mabern Plays Mabern
by Mike Jurkovic
A tad more subdued than the barn-burning The Iron Man: Live At Smoke (Smoke Sessions Records, 2019), Mabern Plays Mabern still manages to jump full throttle from where that defining recording left us, with a lush, lyrical intensity and a vital, legacy-culling energy which plays as an exquisite coda to the pianist's long, outstanding career. Alive with the same stylist's intuition and unbridled spirit which found him cutting through the ranks with such contemporaries as Charles Lloyd and ...
read moreTim Berne, Chris Speed, Reid Anderson, Dave King & Harold Mabern
by Martin Longley
Broken Shadows The Village Vanguard March 26, 2019 Following their residency at The Village Vanguard, two-thirds of The Bad Plus remained in the club for another week, teaming up with saxophonists Tim Berne and Chris Speed to form Broken Shadows. This quartet is dedicated to the music of Ornette Coleman with a faint streak of Berne's mentor Julius Hemphill. The roots of this group came out of Spy vs Spy (Elektra, 1989), John Zorn's ...
read moreHarold Mabern: The Iron Man: Live At Smoke
by Mike Jurkovic
Hard-bopping pianist Harold Mabern may have made his recording debut in 1959 with drummer Walter Perkins' quintet and led his first session in 1968 for Blue Note on the soulful A Few Miles From Memphis but here he is, at 82, playing with straight-ahead, youthful joie de vivre on the story telling, life affirming, two-disc set The Iron Man: Live at Smoke. Working as hard as ever with his long standing trio of tenor saxophonist and former student ...
read moreHarold Mabern & Kirk MacDonald: The Creative Process
by Jeri Brown
Harold Mabern recently toured through Eastern Canada with a stop at St. Paul's Church as part of the Jazz East performance concert series. His duet concerts with Canadian jazz saxophonist Kirk MacDonald included stops in jny: Montreal, Moncton, Antigonish, and Sydney. Their concerts emphasize standard jazz repertoire, as well as their own original music. Mabern, one of the world's most enduring and dazzlingly skilled pianists, is famous across North America for his hard bop and soulful jazz piano style. Born ...
read moreHarold Mabern: Right On Time
by C. Andrew Hovan
It's always cool when you get in on the ground floor of something new and exciting. That's how it feels to have spent time delving into the music being documented by a new jazz label. Since 1998, Smoke has been one of the most happening places in Manhattan to take in some live jazz. A bit secluded from other jazz venues as it is on an upper section of Broadway, Smoke nonetheless first made a name for itself back in ...
read moreHarold Mabern: Mr. Lucky
by Jack Bowers
Harold Mabern brings his happy, blues-oriented piano to bear on this upbeat homage to the great entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. Of the nine songs on the album, only two--Mabern's buoyant original, “Soft Shoe Trainin' with Sammy," and Henry Mancini's title tune--weren't closely associated with Davis. On the other hand, Mr. Lucky seems a rather peculiar name for an album devoted to Davis, as he was undeniably as talented as any entertainer of the past century but, at least in his ...
read moreHarold Mabern: Mr. Lucky
by Greg Simmons
Pianist Harold Mabern's Mr. Lucky is a bon-bon: all sugar, with no protein or vitamins. For a veteran like Mabern, who's made some great jazz records over the years, and who can play fine blues with real grit, this one is confusing. Sure, making homage to Sammy Davis Jr. sounds like a good idea, but did it need to come off so white bread? Ok, admittedly Davis, with his frothy show tunes and mellifluous voice, was not competing with Billie ...
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