Workin' & Wailin': Harold Mabern on Prestige, 1969

Hank Mobley and Harold Mabern

An often overlooked hard bop pianist, Harold Mabern has nonetheless carved out a long career as both a sideman and a leader, occasionally dabbling in soul jazz, composing a lot of his own material, and always playing with sensitivity and verve. Born in Memphis in 1936, he was initially influenced by fellow Memphian Phineas Newborn, Jr., and could double on electric piano whenever necessary. Virtually self-taught, Mabern started to make a name for himself in Chicago after moving there in 1954, yet his most intense flurry of activity as a sideman coincides with the first half of the 1960s, following a life-changing move to New York City in 1959. It was there that he began playing with the likes of Harry "Sweets" Edison and Lionel Hampton, and soon he was touring with Art Farmer and Benny Golson's Jazztet. The list of musicians with whom Mabern played in the sixties reads like a who's who of the jazz scene of the period, including, among many others, Miles Davis, Donald Byrd, Wes Montgomery, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley (he sounds fantastic on Mobley's album Dippin'), J.J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, and singers Johnny Hartman, Betty Carter, and Sarah Vaughan. Of course, he recorded with many of them, but his recording career as a leader doesn't begin until 1968, when he signed with Prestige and cut four lovely albums that, unfortunately, aren't easy to find on CD.

The third of these LPs, recorded in a single session on June 30, 1969, is entitled Workin' & Wailin' and finds Mabern both on piano and electric piano, accompanied by Virgil Jones on trumpet and flugelhorn, George Coleman on tenor, Buster Williams on bass, and Idris Muhammad (aka Leo Morris) on drums. Mabern contributed four original compositions to the date, among them two, "Strozier's Mode" and "Blues for Phineas," that allude to his friend Frank Strozier and to pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr., both of whom were important influences in his life. On the latter, Mabern switches to electric piano and proves to be a soulful interpreter of the blues on that instrument. The other two selections written by Mabern are "I Can't Understand What I See in You," a catchy, contemporary-sounding tune, and "Waltzing Westward," a lively melody in three-quarter time. All four Mabern originals are good examples of the pianist's aggressive, chord-filled approach and showcase his undeniable talent as a composer, also leaving plenty of room for Jones and Coleman to shine. The album opener, "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby," associated with The Temptations and Marvin Gaye, finds Mabern stepping into soul jazz territory, while the closing track, Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster's "A Time for Love," is the slowest selection on the LP and shows Mabern's most sensitive side. The album has been collated with another Prestige date by Mabern, Greasy Kid Stuff, for a CD reissue titled simply Wailin' , which inexplicably leaves out "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby." Until someone decides to release Mabern's complete Prestige recordings in digital format (which would be really desirable, by the way), this disc is well worth picking up, though. Mabern, who's an octogenarian at the time of this writing, has built up quite a following in Japan (he's even cut some albums for Japanese labels) and has fortunately kept recording steadily, his last session as a leader so far dating from 2014. A classy hard bopper who deserves wider recognition.

Howard McGhee Is Back in Town, 1961

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1918, Howard McGhee was one of the most prodigiously talented trumpeters of his generation, on a par with legends like Dizzy Gillespie, and he was instrumental in bridging the gap between swing and bop. He was, however, a late comer to the instrument, having started out on the saxophone and the clarinet, but once he picked up the trumpet, there was no turning back. In the original liner notes to the album we're discussing today, Maggie's Back in Town, written by Nat Hentoff, McGhee attributes his tendency toward playing more notes than other trumpeters to the fact that he was a saxophonist and clarinetist first, and he also remembers that his parents weren't in the least pleased about his interest in jazz: "I used to sneak a radio into my room and listen to Roy [Eldridge] on the air. My folks were church people. They didn't like jazz, and they didn't want me to play it, but that was what I wanted to do, and nothing could stop me." Roy Eldridge and Louis Armstrong were his earliest influences, and he in turn influenced a host of trumpeters who came after, among them the great Clifford Brown. During the Swing Era, Maggie--such was his nickname, to which the title of the LP makes reference--was a member of several bands, including those led by Lionel Hampton, Andy Kirk, Charlie Barnet, Count Basie, and Georgie Auld, and he distinguished himself for his powerful, exciting style that can be heard, for example, on "McGhee Special," recorded while with Kirk. The year of 1945 marks a turning point in McGhee's career: he joined Coleman Hawkins and relocated to California, where he played countless live dates and cut some forward-looking records for Dial, including sessions with Charlie Parker. Bop classics such as "Rifftide" and "Stuffy" originated during these extremely important years.

Unfortunately, at the same time that his career was thriving, a host of drug-related problems began to dramatically affect his personal life, and as a result, McGhee's recordings throughout the 1950s are very scarce. He did make a worthy comeback album of sorts for Bethlehem in 1956, The Return of Howard McGhee (with Sahib Shihab, Duke Jordan, Percy Heath, and Philly Joe Jones), but it wasn't until 1961, when he released Maggie's Back in Town on Contemporary Records, that he was truly back on the scene--and this time to stay. The album was cut during the course of a single session, which took place in Los Angeles on June 26, 1961, and finds McGhee in the excellent company of pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr., bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Shelly Manne. Around this time, McGhee and Vinnegar had been playing at the Town Hill in L.A., and their mutual understanding is obvious on this recording, as is Maggie's affinity with Newborn. The opening track, "Demon Chase," is the only McGhee original, and it starts off with an interesting call-and-response structure that gives way to lovely solos by both McGhee and Newborn. Two of the tunes were composed by Teddy Edwards: his classic "Sunset Eyes" and "Maggie's Back in Town," which Edwards obviously wrote for this session and which is given a ten-minute treatment that allows for plenty of room for everyone to solo. There are also three standards ("Willow Weep for Me," "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise," and "Summertime"), all of them taken at a rather brisk tempo, with McGhee mainly playing muted trumpet (except in the release of "Willow") and offering some inventive improvisation on the melodies with the help of Newborn and the rhythm section. Finally, the album closes with "Brownie Speaks," a masterfully played salute to Clifford Brown, a trumpeter that McGhee influenced and also deeply admired, both as a musician and as a composer. Though McGhee would cut a few more notable albums before his passing in 1987, this comeback LP that Original Jazz Classics reissued on CD 1991 remains one of his most enduring statements on record and is absolutely recommendable.