| Herbie Mann | |
|---|---|
Herbie Mann and Will Lee (1975) |
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| Background information | |
| Born | April 16, 1930 Brooklyn, New York |
| Origin | United States |
| Died | July 1, 2003 (aged 73) |
| Genres | Jazz, bossa nova, disco, world music |
| Occupations | musician, record label executive |
| Instruments | Flute, saxophone, bass clarinet |
| Years active | 1953–2003 |
| Labels | Atlantic Records, Cotillion Records, Embryo Records, Kokopelli Records |
| Associated acts | Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto |
Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003),[1] better known as Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played tenor saxophone and clarinets (including bass clarinet), but Mann was among the first jazz musicians to specialize on the flute and was perhaps jazz music's preeminent flutist during the 1960s. His most popular single was "Hijack," which was a Billboard Number-one dance hits of 1975 (USA) for 3 weeks.
Mann emphasized the groove approach in his music. Mann felt that from his repertoire, the "epitome of a groove record" was Memphis Underground or Push Push, because the "rhythm section locked all in one perception." [2]
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Herbie Mann was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents of Jewish Romanian and Russian descent.[3][4] He attended Lincoln High School in Brighton Beach, failing a music class there. His first professional performance was playing the Catskills resorts at age 15. In the 1950s, Mann was primarily a bop flutist, playing in combos with artists such as Phil Woods, with occasional forays into bass clarinet, tenor sax and solo flute.
Mann was an early pioneer in the fusing of jazz and world music. He incorporated elements of African music in 1959 following a State Department sponsored tour of the continent, adding a conga player to his band, and the same year recorded Flutista, an album of Afro-Cuban jazz. In 1961 Mann took a tour of Brazil and returned to the United States to record with Brazilian players including Antonio Carlos Jobim and guitarist Baden Powell. These albums helped popularize the bossa nova. Many of his albums throughout his career returned to Brazilian themes. He went on to record reggae in London (in 1974), Middle Eastern (1966 and 1967) (with oud and dumbek), and Eastern European styles. In the mid-1960s Mann hired a young Chick Corea to play in some of his bands. In the late 1970s, early 1980s Mann played duets at New York City's Bottom Line and the Village Gate to sold out crowds with the late Sarod virtuso Vasant Rai.
Following the 1969 hit album Memphis Underground a number of disco-style smooth jazz records in the 1970s, mainly on Atlantic records, brought some criticism from jazz purists but helped Mann remain active during a period of declining interest in jazz. The musicians on these recordings are some of the best-known session players in soul and jazz, including singer Cissy Houston (mother of Whitney Houston), guitarists Duane Allman and Larry Coryell, bassists Donald "Duck" Dunn and Chuck Rainey and drummers Al Jackson and Bernard Purdie, these last from the Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama. In this period Mann had a number of songs cross over to the pop charts — rare for a jazz musician. A 1998 interview reported that "At least 25 Herbie Mann albums have made the top 200 pop charts, success denied most of his jazz peers." [5]
Mann provided the music for the 1978 National Film Board of Canada animated short Afterlife, by Ishu Patel.
In the early 1970s he founded his own label, Embryo Records, distributed by Cotillion Records, a division of Atlantic Records.[6] Embryo produced jazz albums, such as Ron Carter's Uptown Conversation (1970); Miroslav Vitous' first solo album, Infinite Search (1969); Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival (1971); and Dick Morrissey and Jim Mullen's Up (1976), which featured the Average White Band as a rhythm section; and the 730 Series, with a more rock-oriented style, including Zero Time (1971) by TONTO's Expanding Head Band. He later set up Kokopelli Records after difficulty with established labels. In 1996, Mann collaborated with Stereolab on the song "One Note Samba/Surfboard" for the AIDS-Benefit album Red Hot + Rio produced by the Red Hot Organization. His last appearance was on May 3, 2003 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival at age 73. He died at age 73 on July 1, 2003 after a long battle with prostate cancer.