Sebastian writes:
The Smoke Sessions label has just announced the passing of Memphis-born pianist Harold Mabern at the age of 83 on 19 September.
Harold Mabern at Pizza Express in Dean Street, 2017. Photo by Paul Wood
An extraordinary talent and a wonderful human being. May he rest in peace, as we remember him.
Very sad news about Harold Mabern’s passing. Anyone who made it into Ben Sidran’s song ‘Piano Players’ was very much a key figure in jazz. I reviewed one of his last recordings from November 2017 on this site, the New York All-Stars Burnin’ In London, recorded live at Pizza Express. https://londonjazznews.com/2018/08/10/cd-review-new-york-all-stars-featuring-eric-alexander-and-harold-mabern-burnin-in-london/
He was my beloved, treasured teacher and, I like to think, my friend for 33 years. His passing leaves us all bereft. We will not see his like again.
He was my teacher for many years. He was the most generous man, and perhaps the kindest, I have ever known. He was unfailingly modest. He was a prince of a human being. I am sunk in grief.
A great heart. And that touch! – he had the softest hands. When you shook hands with him, it was such an enveloping warmth that you just wanted to stay there. And yet, what he did to those keyboards!
Where is a New York Times obituary?????!!!!!
Heard him in several contexts.
However, above all it is uncanny how he made the piano sometimes sound like a vibraphone in his collaborations with Wes Montgomery, who had come from a sibling partnership with his brother Monk, the vibraphonist.