With reservations, RON JACOBS recommends a deep dive into the nature, history, and mindset of US intelligence
Mabern's got the blues, marvellously
JOHN HAWKINS wrestles with the anti-humanist fantasies of techno-feudalist thinking
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Savages, The Legend of Ochi, and The Naked Gun
GORDON PARSONS advises you to get up to speed on obscure ancient ceremonies to grasp this interpretation of a late Shakespearean tragi-comedy
DENNIS BROE enjoys the political edge of a series that unmasks British imperialism, resonates with the present and has been buried by Disney
STEVE JOHNSON speaks to DJ and singer/songwriter Mark Radcliffe
Harold Mabern
Right on Time and To Love and Be Loved
(Smoke)
HAROLD MABERN is part of that great tradition of pianists from the southern city US city of Memphis, which also birthed Phineas Newborn, James Williams and Donald Brown.
Mabern, born in 1936, grew up wanting to be a drummer and he tells how he used to beat on cans as a child. It was then that he heard a young girl playing the song I Stuck My Dollar in the Mud on the piano, which inspired him to teach himself the instrument and join his high school band. He met local jazz eminences like saxophonist George Coleman, trumpeter Louis Smith and the prodigious Newborn, which propelled him into the heart of the music.
More from this author
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to vocalist Jacqui Dankworth
CHRIS SEARLE pays tribute to the late South African percussionist, Louis Moholo-Moholo
Re-releases from Bobby Wellins/Kenny Wheeler Quintet, Larry Stabbins/Keith Tippet/Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Charles Mingus Quintet
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ethiopian vocalist SOFIA JERNBERG
