Harold Mabern discusses jazz in Memphis

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Harold Mabern on hearing himself retrospectively

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Harold Mabern talks about practicing

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Q: “I don’t think of Memphis as a jazz center. I think of it as a blues center…”

A: Harold Mabern: “Well, you see, most people don't know Jimmie Lunceford taught at our little high school, which was Manassas High. This was before my time and Charlie Parker's mother and father were from Memphis, Tennessee and had his parents stayed there a few days later, Charlie Parker would have been born in Memphis. A lot of people don't know this. JL Wilson is from Memphis indirectly. Jimmy Jones, the late great, the world's greatest accompanist is from Memphis, Tennessee.”

Interviewer: “Yeah.”

Harold Mabern: “So it's a whole history of musicians from there, you know, George Coleman, Phineas Cobb and Newborn, Frank Strozier, late Booker Little, Charles Lloyd, Garnet Brown, the late great Sonny Criss, even the Earth, Wind and Fire. When I say, even Earth, Wind and Fire, I don't mean that as a put down because of the rhythm and blues. I love them better, you know, than most. You know, so it's a really a town of a lot of great talents. It's just compared to New York or say Chicago as far as the size, there is a difference in the size, but the quality, I would want to think is really very valid, you know.”