Harold Mabern Jr. (March 20, 1936 – September 17, 2019) was an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
pianist and composer, principally in the
hard bop
Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospe ...
,
post-bop
Post-bop is a genre of small-combo jazz that evolved in the early to mid 1960s in the United States. Pioneers of the genre, such as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane and Jackie McLean, crafted syntheses of ...
, and
soul jazz
Soul jazz or funky jazz is a subgenre of jazz that incorporates strong influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. Soul jazz is often characterized by organ trios featuring the Hammond organ and small combos including ten ...
fields.Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (2007) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz''. p. 425. Oxford University Press. He is described in ''
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings
''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...
'' as "one of the great post-bop pianists".
Early life
Mabern was born in
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
on March 20, 1936. He initially started learning drums before switching to learning piano. He had access to a piano from his teens, after his father, who worked in a lumber yard, saved to buy him one. Mabern learned by watching and emulating pianists Charles Thomas and
Phineas Newborn Jr.
Phineas Newborn Jr. (December 14, 1931 – May 26, 1989) was an American jazz pianist, whose principal influences were Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Bud Powell.
Biography
Newborn was born in Whiteville, Tennessee, and came from a musical famil ...
Frank Strozier
Frank R. Strozier Jr. (born June 13, 1937) is a jazz alto saxophonist.
Strozier was born in Memphis, Tennessee, where he learned to play piano. In 1954, he moved to Chicago, where he performed with Harold Mabern, George Coleman, and Booker Littl ...
,
George Coleman
George Edward Coleman (born March 8, 1935) is an American jazz saxophonist known for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s. In 2015, he was named an NEA Jazz Master.
Early life
Coleman was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was ...
and trumpeter
Booker Little
Booker Little Jr. (April 2, 1938 – October 5, 1961) – accessed June 2010 was an American
at this time, but was most influenced by Newborn, Jr. In 1954, after graduating, Mabern moved to
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, intending to attend the
American Conservatory of Music
The American Conservatory of Music (ACM) was a major American school of music founded in Chicago in 1886 by John James Hattstaedt (1851–1931). The conservatory was incorporated as an Illinois non-profit corporation. It developed the Conservato ...
. He was unable to afford to attend music college because of a change in his parents' financial circumstances, but had private lessons there for six months and developed his reading ability by playing with trombonist Morris Ellis' big band. He also developed by listening to
Ahmad Jamal
Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones, July 2, 1930) is an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and educator. For six decades, he has been one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz.
Biography Early life
Jamal was born Fr ...
and others in clubs,Gilbert, Andrew (December 2006 "Harold Mabern and Eric Alexander: Getting Schooled" ''Jazz Times''. and "playing and practicing 12 hours a day" for the next five years, but he remained self-taught as a pianist. Mabern went on to play with Walter Perkins' MJT + 3 and others in Chicago.MJT + 3 at allmusic/ref>
Mabern learned orchestration techniques from bassist Bill Lee, and comping and chord voicing from pianists
Chris Anderson Chris Anderson may refer to:
Sports
* Chris Anderson (baseball) (born 1992), American baseball player
* Chris Anderson (cheese roller), 22-time winner of annual cheese rolling
* Chris Anderson (footballer, born 1925) (1925–1986), Scottish footb ...
and Billy Wallace.
1959–1967
Mabern moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1959. According to his own account, he moved there with saxophonist Frank Strozier on November 21, 1959, checked in at a hotel and then went to Birdland, where he met
Cannonball Adderley
Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s.
Adderley is perhaps best remembered for the 1966 soul jazz single "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", whi ...
, who asked him if he wanted a gig. Mabern accepted and was shown inside, where trumpeter
Harry "Sweets" Edison
Harry "Sweets" Edison (October 10, 1915 – July 27, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. His most important contribution was as a Hollywood studio musician, whose muted trumpet can be heard backi ...
, who was looking for a pianist to replace the soon-to-depart
Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan (March 16, 1930 – November 16, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He grew up in Detroit, initially influenced by such pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole, and then by bebop musicians. ...
, auditioned him and offered him the place.Shanley, Mike (April 2003 "Harold Mabern: The Accompanist" . ''Jazz Times''. A few weeks later, most of the members of this band then joined
Jimmy Forrest James, Jim or Jimmy Forrest may refer to:
Sports
* James Forrest (rugby union) (born 1907), Scotland international rugby union player
* James Forrest (baseball) (1897–1977), American baseball player
* James Forrest (basketball) (born 1972), Ame ...
for a recording in Chicago that resulted in the albums ''All the Gin Is Gone'' and ''Black Forrest'', which were also guitarist
Grant Green
Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was an American jazz guitarist and composer.
Recording prolifically for Blue Note Records as both leader and sideman, Green performed in the hard bop, soul jazz, bebop, and Latin-tinged idioms ...
debut recordings.
Mabern steadily built a reputation in New York as a sideman, playing with, among others,
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles M ...
's big band in 1960 (including a tour of Europe),Rinzler, Paul; Kernfeld, Barr "Mabern, Harold(, Jr.)" ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' (2nd ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed June 28, 2013. (Subscription required.)
the Jazztet
The Jazztet was a jazz sextet, co-founded in 1959 by trumpeter Art Farmer and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, always featuring the founders along with a trombonist and a piano-bass-drums rhythm section. In its first phase, the Jazztet lasted until ...
for 18 months in the period 1961–62, accompanying vocalists, including
Betty Carter
Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones; May 16, 1929 – September 26, 1998) was an American jazz singer known for her improvisational technique, scatting and other complex musical abilities that demonstrated her vocal talent and imaginative inter ...
,
Johnny Hartman
John Maurice Hartman (July 3, 1923 – September 15, 1983) was an American jazz singer who specialized in ballads. He sang and recorded with Earl Hines' and Dizzy Gillespie's big bands and with Erroll Garner. Hartman is best remembered for hi ...
and
Arthur Prysock
Arthur Prysock Jr. (January 1, 1924Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop m ...
and drummer
Roy Haynes
Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925) is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jazz ...
. After completing a 1963 tour with Haynes, he had a six-week engagement at the Black Hawk in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
with
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
. Mabern went on to spend time with
J. J. Johnson
J.J. Johnson (January 22, 1924 – February 4, 2001), born James Louis Johnson and also known as Jay Jay Johnson, was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop.
Biograph ...
in 1963–65 after being briefly with
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a ...
. In 1965, he also played with
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s, Morgan came to prominence in his late teens, recording on John Coltrane's '' Blue Train'' (1 ...
, an association that continued on and off until the night in February 1972 that Morgan was shot dead at
Slug's Saloon
Slugs' Saloon was a jazz club at 242 East 3rd Street, between Avenue B and C in Manhattan's East Village, operating from the mid-1960s to 1972.
The location, in what was then a run-down part of New York City, first hosted a Ukrainian restaurant a ...
, with Mabern present. Mabern toured in Europe with
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (March 6, 1923 – June 15, 1968) was an American jazz guitarist. Montgomery was known for an unusual technique of plucking the strings with the side of his thumb and his extensive use of octaves, which gave him a dist ...
later in 1965 as part of a band that had been together for around two years before the European tour, traveling as a quartet from gig to gig in one car.Fitzgerald, Tim "625 Alive: The Wes Montgomery BBC Performance Transcribed" pp. vii–ix. From 1965, Mabern also worked with
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
,
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood "Jackie" McLean (May 17, 1931 – March 31, 2006) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator, and is one of the few musicians to be elected to the ''DownBeat'' Hall of Fame in the year of their deat ...
,
Hank Mobley
Henry "Hank" Mobley (July 7, 1930 – May 30, 1986) was an American hard bop and soul jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to descr ...
,
Blue Mitchell
Richard Allen "Blue" Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American trumpeter and composer who worked in jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock and funk. He recorded albums as leader and sideman for Riverside, Mainstream Records, and Blu ...
(1966),
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer.
Nicknamed "Sassy" and "Jazz royalty, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine ...
Mabern's recording career as a leader began in 1968, after he signed for
Prestige Records
Prestige Records is a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City which issued recordings in the mainstream, bop, and cool jazz idioms. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz music ...
early that year. His first album, '' A Few Miles from Memphis'', featured several of his own originals. Further dates for Prestige were released, and Mabern recorded approximately 20 albums as leader, for many labels. Mabern worked intermittently over a period of four decades with
George Coleman
George Edward Coleman (born March 8, 1935) is an American jazz saxophonist known for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s. In 2015, he was named an NEA Jazz Master.
Early life
Coleman was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was ...
, beginning in the 1960s, and including an appearance at the 1976
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...
. From the early 1970s, he worked with trumpeters
Clark Terry
Clark Virgil Terry Jr. (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator.
He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–51), Duke ...
and Joe Newman, played jazz-pop electric piano with
George Benson
George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, pla ...
and
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He began his career playing R&B for Earl Bostic and later soul jazz recording for the Blue Note label from 1960, touched on jazz fusion dur ...
, was part of drummer Walter Bolden's trio (1973–74), and led his own trio with Bolden and bassist
Jamil Nasser
Jamil Nasser (born George Joyner, June 21, 1932 – February 13, 2010)Obituary at
.
Among other musicians Mabern played with from this period were
Milt Jackson
Milton Jackson (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999), nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solo ...
in 1977, and
Billy Harper
Billy Harper (born January 17, 1943) is an American jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of John Coltrane, Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument.Chris KelseyBilly Harper Biogr ...
for a tour of Japan in the same year.Carr, Ian; Fairweather, Digby; Priestly, Brian (1995) ''Jazz: The Rough Guide''. p. 398. The Rough Guides. Four years later, Mabern toured Europe with George Coleman, and played with
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (born Edward L. Vinson Jr.; December 18, 1917 – July 2, 1988) was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in which his hair was ...
. The following year, Mabern played with James Moody. There were also performances and recordings with innumerable other musicians, both as leader and sideman. Mabern also worked with two piano-based groups: the Piano Choir, formed and led by
Stanley Cowell
Stanley Cowell (May 5, 1941 – December 17, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and co-founder of the Strata-East Records label.
Early life
Cowell was born in Toledo, Ohio. He began playing the piano around the age of four, and became interest ...
from the early 1970s and featuring at least six pianists/keyboardists, and the four-player Contemporary Piano Ensemble, the latter being formed in the early 1990s to pay tribute to Phineas Newborn Jr. and touring extensively, including at the
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
(1991) and
Monterey Jazz Festival
The Monterey Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Monterey, California, United States. It debuted on October 3, 1958, championed by Dave Brubeck and co-founded by jazz and popular music critic Ralph J. Gleason and jaz ...
s (1996).
Mabern had a career resurgence after his album ''
Straight Street
Straight Street, from the Latin Via Recta ( ar, الشارع المستقيم ''al-Shāriʿ al-Mustaqīm''), known as the Street called Straight ( gr, τήν ῥύμην τήν καλουμένην εὐθείαν) in the New Testament, is the ol ...
'' was a success in Japan in 1989. He visited Japan in 1990 as a member of a ten-pianist group that toured together but played and recorded separately. In the mid-1990s, Mabern toured with and led a trio of bassist Erik Applegate and drummer
Ed Thigpen
Edmund Leonard Thigpen (December 28, 1930 – January 13, 2010) was an American jazz drummer, best known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965. Thigpen also performed with the Billy Taylor trio from 1956 to 1959.
Biography ...
. In later years, he recorded extensively with his former
William Paterson University
William Paterson University, officially William Paterson University of New Jersey (WPUNJ), is a public university in Wayne, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education.
Founded in 1855 and was named after American ju ...
student, the tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander. In 2010, Mabern received the Don Redman Heritage Award.
Mabern's repute in Japan was reflected in his signing by the Japanese label
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
, which resulted in six albums from 2002; Mabern stated in 2004 that his 2002 recording for Venus, ''Kiss of Fire'', featuring Alexander as a guest, was his best seller. A longtime faculty member at
William Paterson University
William Paterson University, officially William Paterson University of New Jersey (WPUNJ), is a public university in Wayne, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education.
Founded in 1855 and was named after American ju ...
(from 1981), Mabern was a frequent instructor at the
Stanford Jazz Workshop
Stanford Jazz Workshop (SJW) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to jazz education and the annual concert series known as the Stanford Jazz Festival.
SJW was founded in 1972 by saxophonist and educator Jim Nadel. Though many of its activities a ...
. Mabern's stated piano preference was "naturally the Steinway D, but if you can't get a D, any Steinway".
In 2015, Mabern released ''Afro Blue'', "the first of Mabern's two dozen leader dates to showcase the context in which he worked frequently during the 1960s: accompanying vocalists".Panken, Ted (July 2015) "A Million Dollars' Worth of Experience". ''Down Beat''. "Mabern played in Britain ..in 2017 and 2018 with a quartet featuring Alexander, and finally for two evenings with his trio at Ronnie Scott's club in May 2019." Mabern, who was a regular at
Smoke (jazz club)
Smoke Jazz Club is a jazz club located at 2751 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The club was opened on April 9, 1999 by co-founders Paul Stache and Frank Christopher and is currently owned by Stache and his wife and p ...
recorded his final four albums on the club's label Smoke Sessions.
Mabern died of a heart attack in New Jersey on 17 September 2019.
Playing style
Mabern's piano style was described as being "aggressive, very positive, crashing out chords that drop like pile drivers and warming up and down the keyboard with huge, whooping bursts of action", while, at the same time, he showed "a keen sensitivity" as "an extremely perceptive accompanist". Critic
Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986 Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a j ...
identified some of the characteristics of Mabern's playing as being "blues glisses, ..tremolos and dissonant block chords", that help to create a style "that marries
McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet (from 1960 to 1965) and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA ...
's clustering modality with rippling asides that stem from rtTatum".Giddins, Gary (January 20, 1998 "Beale Street Talks" ''The Village Voice''. The influence of Phineas Newborn, Jr. remained noticeable: Mabern employed Newborn's "manner of playing fast lines in a two-handed octave (or two-octave) unison, and uses this device in wildly imaginative ways".
When accompanying vocalists, Mabern stated that he played with "less force, less aggression. I use the soft pedal. You don't voice the chord with the leading tone. You wait for them to sing a phrase, then fill in the space."
Discography
Years refer to the date of recording, unless an asterisk (*) is next to the year; this indicates that it is the date of initial release.
As leader/co-leader
As sideman
References
External links
*
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...