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ALBUM REVIEW March 18, 2020

Harold Mabern: Mabern Plays Mabern

Read "Mabern Plays Mabern" reviewed 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 ...

LIVE FROM NEW YORK April 14, 2019

Tim 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 ...

ALBUM REVIEW January 14, 2019

Harold 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 ...

INTERVIEW May 2, 2018

Harold 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 ...

EXTENDED ANALYSIS March 5, 2014

Harold 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 ...

ALBUM REVIEW December 21, 2012

Harold 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 ...

ALBUM REVIEW September 29, 2012

Harold 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 ...