While it was captured over the course a single night,
there’s a rich lifetime’s worth of music packed into The Iron Man: Live at
Smoke. If it’s a slight overstatement to say that the album represents an
autobiography in song, that’s only because 82-year-old jazz master Harold
Mabern tells his story in every note that he plays. That’s as true of the
melodies he’s been interpreting for more then half a century – as many of the
tunes on The Iron Man are – as it is of the always inspired music that flows
spontaneously from the great pianist’s fingers.
The Iron Man, due out November 23 via Smoke Sessions
Records, was recorded on the final night of a remarkable three-week residency,
an annual holiday tradition at the renowned New York City club. Most of that
2017/18 run was dedicated to the music of John Coltrane and featured a host of
invited guests to the bandstand. For this magical final performance, however,
Mabern and his gifted, longstanding quartet – tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander,
bassist John Webber, and drummer Joe Farnsworth – went it alone, vigorously
swinging through well-loved tunes from throughout Mabern’s storied career.
The night kicks off with the rollicking funk of “A Few Miles
from Memphis,” the title track from Mabern’s 1968 leader debut. The piece
harkens back to Mabern’s vital role as a pioneer of soul jazz alongside
collaborators like the great trumpeter Lee Morgan. More importantly, though, it
transports the pianist back to his roots in Memphis, Tennessee, where he became
entranced by the great jazz and blues innovator Phineas Newborn Jr. The city’s
legendary blues traditions took hold of a generation of young musicians; Mabern
graduated from Manassas High School, whose alumni also include Charles Lloyd
and future Mabern collaborators Booker Little, Frank Strozier, and George
Coleman.
Many of those Memphians would reconvene in Chicago in the
mid-'50s, which is where Mabern honed his hard bop grooves accompanying such
powerhouse tenor titans as Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons and Clifford Jordan. By
the end of the decade he had found his way to New York City, where he would
soon be an in-demand sideman for many of the most notable leaders of that
generation – including Lionel Hampton, Donald Byrd, Sonny Rollins, Freddie
Hubbard, Joe Williams, and Hank Mobley.
Mabern’s tender reading of Benny Golson’s immortal “I
Remember Clifford” here, in a trio setting, recalls one of his first important
gigs upon arriving in the Big Apple. He spent 18 months with The Jazztet,
replacing McCoy Tyner in the influential band co-led by Golson and Art Farmer.
The blistering “I Know That You Know” flashes forward to 1965, when Mabern
recorded the tune with another hard bop trailblazer, saxophonist Sonny Stitt.
Mabern’s surprising rearrangement of “I Get a Kick Out of
You,” meanwhile, is revived from last year’s To Love and Be Loved, an album
which reunited him with legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb – who Mabern had first
played with half a century earlier in Miles Davis’ band. Mabern’s stint with
the iconic trumpeter was brief, but came at a crucial time as Davis was
experimenting with the line-up that would finally congeal into his Second Great
Quintet. Two earlier veterans of Davis’s storied band – John Coltrane and Paul
Chambers -- receive a nod with Trane’s classic “Mr. P.C.”
Mabern forged a more lasting bond with Lee Morgan, recording
the classic album The Gigolo for Blue Note in 1965 and continuing to play with
the trumpet innovator until the night of his tragic death at Slug’s Saloon in
1972. In the meantime, Mabern started recording under his own name, releasing
four well-regarded albums for Prestige between 1968-70 whose line-ups included
such brilliant improvisers as Morgan, Blue Mitchell, George Coleman, Bill Lee,
Hubert Laws, and Idris Muhammad.
On those outings Mabern helped define the fusion of soul and
jazz, including contemporary hits like Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the
Grapevine” and The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” – a penchant echoed on the
Smoke bandstand with the quartet’s lovely take on the Michael Jackson ballad
“She’s Out of My Life.” He followed a similar route with Stanley Turrentine
when he worked with the soulful saxophonist on the early-'70s albums The Sugar
Man and Don’t Mess With Mister T.
“Nightlife in Tokyo” is the Mabern-penned title tune from
Eric Alexander’s 2002 album, which featured Mabern and Farnsworth along with
bassist Ron Carter. It’s one of countless collaborations between the two since
Mabern became the saxophonist’s mentor at William Paterson University, where
the pianist has been a member of the faculty since 1981.
While he and Alexander have shifted from teacher and student
to a partnership that is one of the most meaningful between any saxophonist and
pianist in jazz, that’s just one testament to Mabern’s profound influence as an
educator, a contribution to jazz on par with that made through his music. The
list of Mabern students who have gone on to make their mark include Farnsworth,
trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey, drummers Bill
Stewart, Mark Guiliana and Johnathan Blake, and saxophonist Roxy Coss.
The Iron Man draws to a rousing conclusion with another
title tune, this one from Mabern’s 1968 sophomore release “Rakin’ and
Scrapin’,” which featured George Coleman and trumpet great Blue Mitchell on the
frontline. He rerecorded the piece with Lee Morgan on 1970’s Live at the
Lighthouse, though the fact that he’s kept his ears wide open in the
intervening decades is revealed by the clever quote of Steely Dan’s “Do It
Again” that crops up unexpectedly in his solo.
Whether you listen to these two sets as representing a
single special evening or 82 memorable years, there’s ample evidence that
Harold Mabern deserves to be known as The Iron Man – a powerhouse player, a
formative mentor, a revered survivor.
"The Iron Man: Live at Smoke" was produced by Paul
Stache and Damon Smith,
recorded
live at Smoke Jazz Club, NYC on January 7, 2018 and mastered to ½” analog tape using a Studer mastering
deck.
Harold Mabern · The Iron Man: Live at Smoke
Smoke Sessions Records · Release Date: November 23, 2018
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