Articles

Harvey Mason: Chameleon

By Jeff Winbush

When you've been making music as long as Harvey Mason has as a solo artist and manning the drum chair for Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Donald Byrd,and more artists than there is space here to list, you are not only pleasing longtime fans, you're making new converts as well. Some who might ask, “This guy's pretty good. Wonder what else he's done?" Mason's answer is his first album in a decade, Chameleon and he both looks back at ...

Harvey Mason: With All My Heart

By Javier AQ Ortiz

Harvey Mason's motto on With All My Heart seems to be “The one who plays drums in a jazz trio with the most bad-ass pianists and bassists wins. Arguably, that can be also stated of his entire career, as he has played and recorded with a mind-numbing amount of artists through various historical periods and musical styles. The lengthy and illustrious development of the quintessential small jazz group is definitely boosted by this recording.The premise of the production ...

Harvey Mason: With All My Heart

By AAJ Staff

Harvey Mason With All My Heart RCA 2004

Straight-ahead jazz fans and the more “purist" minded of jazz listeners among us have a tendency to write off the overall musical abilities of those who play contemporary or smooth jazz. This often boils down to little more than guilt by association, as one will make an assumption about the musical talent of someone who performs music they don't really respect. Just because of ...

Harvey Mason: Ratamacue

By AAJ Staff

Every time Harvey Mason decides to record a new album he calls on a few old favours and boy it still amazes me who the Mason gang comprises of. The above looks like a ' who's who ' of the fusion jazz music industry. The musicians who didn't appear were probably on tour or on a holiday on the moon. Joining Harvey on this album too are family members Harvey Junior and Heather, who like the maestro himself, are wonderfully ...