Re: RIP Herbie Mann

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 19:21:57 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
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Jazz Flutist Herbie Mann Dies at 73
DEBORAH BAKER
Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. - Herbie Mann, a versatile jazz flutist whose restless search
for new sounds took him around the world and influenced a generation of
musicians, has died at 73.
Diagnosed six years ago with inoperable prostate cancer, Mann died late
Tuesday at his home in Pecos, near Santa Fe, with his family at his bedside.
"It was very peaceful," said his daughter, Claudia Mann-Basler.
Mann was tireless in his efforts to expand his own musical horizons, and was
an early practitioner of fusion and world music. At times, his music defied
categories.
"He really did extend the vocabulary of jazz. ... I think it's a devastating
loss to the music community," said Robert O'Meally, director of Columbia
University's Center for Jazz Studies.
Mann, who moved to the Santa Fe area in 1989 after spending most of his life
in his native New York City, performed for the last time on May 3 at the New
Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He got a standing ovation as he walked
on stage, lugging a bottle of oxygen with him to help him cope with the
cancer that had spread to his bones six months earlier.
"It wasn't just a jazz fest. It was a love fest," said his wife, Susan
Janeal Arison, who accompanied him. "I think sometimes he didn't really
realize how much he was appreciated. He was a path maker."
Sy Johnson, a New York City composer and music arranger who knew Mann for
some 40 years, called him "a wonderful Pied Piper of jazz, drawing our
attention to what's happening around the world and the country."
Mann experimented with various styles, then combined them. He explored the
music of Africa, India, Cuba, Jamaica, the Middle East, Japan and Brazil.
The group Family of Mann, formed in 1973, played world music before it was
called that. Mann's best-selling "Memphis Underground" was a founding
recording of fusion.
If a genie offered Mann anything he wanted, he said in a 1995 Associated
Press interview, he would choose a big band including three rhythm sections
for straight-ahead jazz, Brazilian music and soul.
"I'd be able to play all that music; I wouldn't have to play any one thing
all the time," he said. "And I would always like to try to evolve the music
to another step. Once you reach the point where you play it perfectly in a
genre, to me it gets boring. Then I want to try to evolve by combining
things."
When he was diagnosed with cancer in 1997, he began thinking about his
musical legacy, Arison said.
"He made a musical odyssey throughout most of the world's music, but he
never really tapped into the music of his own origins - Eastern Europe," his
wife said.
At 70, he put out a CD called "Eastern European Roots."
"I've played Cuban music, but I'm not Cuban," he once told the Rocky
Mountain News. "I've played Brazilian music, but I'm not Brazilian. I've
played jazz, but I'm not African-American. What I am is an Eastern European
Jew. I love all the music I've played, but I wanted something that is mine."
When he left Atlantic Records in 1979 he started producing his own records,
and later he began his own label, Kokopelli. In all, he made more than 100
albums as a leader.
His last four albums were released by Lightyear Entertainment, which on
Wednesday called him "a giant and a visionary."
"The years of pleasure he has given have touched millions. He will be sorely
missed," said Lightyear President Arnie Holland.
Born Herbert Solomon in Brooklyn in 1930, he started his career when he was
15, playing in groups at Catskill Mountain resorts for the summer. He
studied saxophone but preferred flute. In the 1950s, after three years in
the Army playing with the Army Band in Trieste, Italy, Mann toured France
and Scandinavia.
He credited visits to Africa and Brazil in the early 1960s with changing his
musical outlook.
"When I came back (from Africa), I hired (Babatunde) Olatunji, a Nigerian
drummer living here, and we started doing music based on African motifs," he
told the AP.
As for the Brazil tour, he said, "Revelation doesn't touch it. Up to that
point, the ethnic music I had heard had 14 drums playing different parts but
the melodies were very simple. Then I saw the `Black Orpheus' movie and
heard multiple rhythm parts along with the most beautiful melodies in the
world."
He returned and recorded with Brazilian musicians, including Antonio Carlos
Jobim and a 19-year-old Sergio Mendes.
"As much as I love music, I never really thought it was my life. I thought
it was the vehicle I used to express my life," he said.
Mann founded the Herbie Mann Prostate Cancer Awareness Music Foundation,
which provided onsite screenings for thousands of men at concerts and other
events.
Mann is also survived by his mother, Ruth Solomon of Hallandale, Fla.;
sister Judi Burnstein of Niceville, Fla.; sons Paul Mann of San Francisco
and Geoff Mann of New York City; and daughter Laura Mann of New York City.