Harold Mabern, Right on Time, Smoke Sessions ***1/2
The Smoke Sessions label style within the handsomely liveried eight-panel artwork is to include an interview with the main artist conducted by Damon Smith who begins his conversation with pianist Harold Mabern respectfully and ends with a bit of advocacy, making a push to make Mabern an NEA jazz master. It’s an understandable aim. The veteran Memphisian Mabern, with bassist John Webber and drummer John Farnsworth recording at Harlem club Smoke in March last year over a couple of nights, begins with the now pretty much forgotten Peter Brown and Robert Gans tune ‘Dance with Me’ in a florid Memphisian style that recalls Phineas Newborn Jr, Mabern’s mentor and to whom the album is dedicated, a style also exemplified by the much missed James Williams who must have learnt a good deal from Mabern and Newborn stylistically. ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’ with less an emphasis on the odd meter than on speed and expression follows and the rest of the album is full of fairly familiar tunes best of all ‘My Favourite Things’ with a bit of ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ tucked in as part of the flourish in the coda. There’s room too for Mabern’s own tune ‘Edward Lee’ dedicated to Lee Morgan. In the sleevenote interview Mabern praises the club’s piano something Eric Reed also mentioned in the notes to Groovewise. Mabern also mentions how he was taught by DeeDee Bridgewater’s dad at high school (who also taught Charles Lloyd among other luminaries) and touches fascinatingly on his Chicago days with Walter Perkins’ MJT+3 who had success with the gloriously laidback but now little remembered ‘Sleepy’. Powered and seasoned by the blues this is an album to put a smile on your face. SG