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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

New portraits of late, great jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller

Some places news still travels slowly: Photographer Sánta István Csaba, based in Budapest, just learned of the untimely death on May 29 of  pianist and educator Mulgrew Miller, and sent three portraits of the highly regarded, largely beloved man that Mulgrew’s people will want to see:

mulgrew 3 4s

 

mulgrew at piano

 

mulgrew full face

 

 

 

 

 

 

Santá explains:

Just came back from Transylvania and usually I’m isolated from all the news when I’m there.

In January I met Mulgrew two times, once in the Dizzy’s Club and once in the William Patterson School in New Jersey where he was the director, I even get lost in the school and asked him to show me the way out.

Mulgrew knew both the ins and the outs of jazz — the last time I myself heard him was in November, in Germany, where he was in the triumphant quintet headed by reedsmen Yusef Lateef and Archie Shepp, with bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Hamid Drake. Mulgrew was the imperturbable, interactive man who connected that multi-faceted rhythm section to the venturesome front line. He was always good at that — with Betty Carter, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw and Tony Williams. All gone now. But like Carter and Blakey especially, Mulgrew invested in the future as Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University and the Artist in Residence at Lafayette College for 2008-2009, teaching and mentoring in the classroom as he did on the job. Mulgrew Miller is already much missed. Luckily, his music remains and his image as captured by Santá says a lot about him, too.

howardmandel.com

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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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