Harold Mabern

Harold Mabern – To Love and Be Loved (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:45 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

ON HIS LATEST ALBUM, To Love and Be Loved, Harold Mabern is joined by a multi-generational band that brings together one of his legendary peers with some of his most acclaimed former students—all of whom play with the same love and respect that Mabern has shared with them over the years.

Due out August 25 on Smoke Sessions Records, Mabern’s To Love and Be Loved reunites Mabern with 88-year-old drumming legend Jimmy Cobb, with whom he first played in Miles Davis’s band during a brief but memorable stint in 1963. The rhythm section is completed by the impeccably swinging bassist Nat Reeves, while the frontline features Mabern’s prize student and frequent collaborator Eric Alexander on tenor saxophone and, on three tracks, another Mabern protégé, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix. Master percussionist Cyro Baptista completes the line-up with a performance on the opening track.

In discussing his reimaging of classic tunes and the inspiration for the album, Mabern quotes an unlikely mentor for a jazz musician: Albert Einstein. The famed physicist once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Mabern took that message to heart, letting his own imagination run free on his new release.

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Harold Mabern – The Iron Man: Live at Smoke (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:43:11 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

New Jazz Albums You Need to Know About: November 2018 Jazz master Harold Mabern swings through an album that represents an autobiography in song. Captured in the course of a single memorable night on stage at New York City s Smoke Jazz & Supper Club, The Iron Man packs a rich lifetime s worth of music, with the 82-year-old legendary pianist performing some of the favorite songs from his renowned career kicking off with the rollicking funk of the title track from his 1968 leader debut A Few Miles from Memphis, and featuring such tracks as “Nightlife in Tokyo” and his takes on such songs as John Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C.” and Michael Jackson’s “She’s Out of My Life.” –Matt Micucci, JAZZIZ

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Harold Mabern – Mabern Plays Mabern (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:09:52 minutes | 861 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

“Mabern Plays Mabern” is pianist Harold Mabern at his absolute best–playing his favorite original compositions with a sextet of close friends and associates in front of a live audience at Smoke Jazz Club in New York City. Mabern is joined by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, alto saxophonist Vincent Herring, trombonist Steve Davis, bassist John Webber, and drummer Joe Farnsworth on an energetic and romp through his catalog. The music on this release is now more highly anticipated and important to Mabern’s fans as he passed away suddenly in September 2019. Nat Chinen of WBGO described him then as “a pianist of percussive fire and boundless soul, with a language that pulled from hard bop, post-bop, Memphis soul and the blues.”

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Harold Mabern – Mabern Plays Coltrane (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:05:02 minutes | 832 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

Saxophonist John Coltrane is among the most influential figures in the history of jazz. That goes without saying. Between his own records and the records that pay homage to Coltrane, his music has remained in the mainstream for ages and is certain to for many more to come. Another of those noted tributes will see the light of day Friday through Smoke Sessions Records in the form of jazz pianist Harold Mabern’s new live CD, Mabern Plays Coltrane. The hour-plus presentation is an impressive new offering from beginning to end. That is proven in part through its featured songs. They will be discussed shortly. The group’s performance thereof is of its own import to the recording’s presentation and will be examined a little later. The recording’s production rounds out its most important elements and will also be discussed later. Each item noted is important in its own way to the whole of the presentation. All things considered, they make Mabern Plays Coltrane a wonderful listening experience for fans of Coltrane, Mabern, and casual jazz fans alike.

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