To Love and Be Loved

On To Love and Be Loved Harold Mabern is joined by a multi-generational band that brings together one of his legendary peers with some of his most acclaimed former students—all of whom play with the same love and respect that Mabern has shared with them over the years.

It reunites Mabern with 88-year-old drumming legend Jimmy Cobb, with whom he first played in Miles Davis’s band during a brief but memorable stint in 1963. The rhythm section is completed by the impeccably swinging bassist Nat Reeves, while the frontline features Mabern’s prize student and frequent collaborator Eric Alexander on tenor saxophone and, on three tracks, another Mabern protégé, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix. Master percussionist Cyro Baptista completes the line-up with a performance on the opening track.

In discussing his reimagining of classic tunes and the inspiration for the album, Mabern quotes an unlikely mentor for a jazz musician: Albert Einstein. The famed physicist once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Mabern took that message to heart, letting his own imagination run free on his new release