Harold Davis

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Since his emergence onto the New York scene in 1959, pianist Harold Mabern has become one of the few true living jazz stylists on the piano. Having played with everyone from Lionel Hampton to Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, and Lee Morgan, Mabern has the experience and the depth of knowledge sufficient to be called a master. There is no one on the scene who sounds like him, and his sense of lyricism, rhythm, time, and the entire range of dynamics in his playing attract other players as well as listeners. The Leading Man, issued in 1993, is considered a classic, both for its selection of material and the performances of the various ensembles Mabern assembled for the date. But there is something else, too – nowhere in Mabern's recorded catalog is there a performance like this from him.

One of several excellent hard bop pianists from the Memphis area, Harold Mabern has led relatively few dates through the years, but he has always been respected by his contemporaries. He played in Chicago with MJT + 3 in the late '50s and then moved to New York in 1959. Mabern worked with Jimmy Forrest, Lionel Hampton, the Jazztet (1961-1962), Donald Byrd, Miles Davis (1963), J.J. Johnson (1963-1965), Sonny Rollins, Freddie Hubbard, Wes Montgomery, Joe Williams (1966-1967), and Sarah Vaughan. During 1968-1970, Mabern led four albums for Prestige, he was with Lee Morgan in the early '70s, and in 1972, he recorded with Stanley Cowell's Piano Choir. Harold Mabern has recorded as a leader for DIW/Columbia and Sackville and toured with the Contemporary Piano Ensemble (1993-1995).

Mabern Plays Coltrane is a vibrant live recording of the late, great Harold Mabern performing the music of John Coltrane featuring an all-star sextet with Eric Alexander, Vincent Herring, Steve Davis, John Webber, and Joe Farnsworth.
Harold held a special reverence for John Coltrane. "He was very influential in my life and my playing, too," he once said. "After being around him and seeing what a great human being he was - man, I wish the whole world could have known John Coltrane."
Mabern Plays Coltrane is culled from the final three-nights of a three-week residency at Smoke’s annual year ending John Coltrane Festival that started in 2017 ended with these performances that Mabern and the band played in January 2018…

Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain (1960) {2000 Japan MiniLP, DSD, SRCS 9705}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 392 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 145 Mb
Full Artwork @ 400 dpi (jpg) -> 81 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2000 SME Records / Sony Music Japan | SRCS 9705 | Super Bit Mapping
Jazz / Cool / Trumpet

The crown jewel of the epic Evans/Davis triptych that began with MILES AHEAD and PORGY AND BESS, SKETCHES OF SPAIN is as emotionally compelling as any performance in the trumpeter's remarkable body of works. Combining as it does the emotional gravity of two cultures–the deep song of flamenco music and the rich lament of the blues–SKETCHES OF SPAIN is a musical hybrid of enormous power and beauty. Gil Evans' immense canvas of orchestral colors inspires some of Davis' most deeply felt solo flights. He paints vast vistas of velvety, shimmering night sounds, and through it all runs the mountainous backbone of Spain's native rhythms and chants.

Despite the presence of classic tracks like Joe Zawinul's "Great Expectations," Big Fun feels like the compendium of sources it is. These tracks are all outtakes from other sessions, most notably Bitches Brew, On the Corner, and others. The other element is that many of these tracks appeared in different versions elsewhere. These were second takes, or the unedited takes before producer Teo Macero and Miles were able to edit them, cut and paste their parts into other things, or whatever. That is not to say the album should be dismissed. Despite the numerous lineups and uneven flow of the tracks, there does remain some outstanding playing and composing here. Most notably is "Great Expectations" from 1969, which opens the album.

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis & Shirley Scott - Bacalao (1959) {Prestige OJCCD-1090-2 rel 2003}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 310 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 102 Mb
Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 7 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1959, 2003 Prestige Records / Fantasy | OJCCD-1090-2
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Saxophone / Organ

When it came to tenor saxophonists, the late organist Shirley Scott had excellent taste. One of the big-toned tenor men she worked with extensively was Stanley Turrentine, whom she married; another was Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Recorded in Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio in 1959, Bacalao is among the many solid hard bop/soul-jazz albums that resulted from Davis' association with Scott. The two of them enjoyed an incredibly strong rapport in the late '50s and early '60s, and they are very much in sync on Bacalao (which unites them with bassist George Duvivier, drummer Arthur Edgehill, and two Latin percussion men: Luis Perez and salsa giant Ray Barretto).

Miles Davis - Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis 1963-1964 (2004) {7CD Columbia C7K 90840}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 2.12 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 958 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 50 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1963-64, 2004 Columbia / Legacy / Sony Music | C7K 90840
Jazz / Hard Bop / Modal Music / Trumpet

Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964 is an anomaly among the retrospective sets that have been issued from the late artist's catalog. It does not focus on particular collaborations (Miles with Coltrane, Gil Evans, the second quintet), complete sessions of historic albums (Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and Jack Johnson), or live runs (Plugged Nickel and Montreux). Instead, it is a portrait of the artist in flux, in the space between legendary bands, when he was looking for a new mode of expression, trying to find the band that would help him get there. These seven CDs begin after the demise of bands that included John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, and Wynton Kelly, after his landmark Gil Evans period, and even after his attempts at creating a new band with everyone from Frank Strozier and Harold Mabern to Sonny Rollins and J.J. Johnson.