Herbie Mann

Throughout his professional journey, Herbie Mann explored an extensive array of musical styles. Achieving notable prominence during the 1960s, he immersed himself so thoroughly in pop and multiple strains of world music during the 1970s that observers sometimes concluded he had drifted away from jazz. Even so, his talent for inventive improvisation endured, as demonstrated by the recordings he issued later in life.

Mann first took up the clarinet at age nine before adding flute and tenor saxophone to his arsenal. Following his military service, he performed with Mat Mathews' Quintet from 1953 to 1954 and soon began leading his own sessions. From 1954 through 1958 he concentrated primarily on bop, occasionally joining forces with Phil Woods, Buddy Collette, Sam Most, Bobby Jaspar, and Charlie Rouse. During this period he also played cool-toned tenor and stood among the scarce jazz artists of the decade to document himself on bass clarinet, culminating in a complete 1957 Savoy album of solo flute performances.

After contributing music to television productions, Mann assembled his Afro-Jazz Sextet in 1959, an ensemble featuring multiple percussionists, vibraphonists such as Johnny Rae, Hagood Hardy, or Dave Pike, and his own flute. He visited Africa in 1960 and Brazil in 1961, scored a hit single with “Comin' Home Baby,” and collaborated with Bill Evans. Widely regarded as the era’s leading jazz flutist, Mann investigated bossa nova—recording on location in Brazil in 1962—while weaving material from numerous cultures and contemporary pop songs into his programs; among his sidemen were Willie Bobo, Chick Corea in 1965, Attila Zoller, and Roy Ayers, and his 1972 Newport Festival sextet included David Newman and Sonny Sharrock. By that point he had already spent three years as a producer for Embryo, an Atlantic subsidiary, and was regularly extending his music beyond jazz boundaries. As the 1970s progressed he became increasingly engaged with rock, pop, reggae, and disco. Upon departing Atlantic at the close of the decade, Mann operated his own imprint for a time before steadily returning to jazz. He recorded for Chesky, cut a date with Dave Valentin, and in the 1990s launched the Kokopelli label, on which he remained free to follow his broad musical interests until his departure in 1996. Across the decades he appeared as a leader on Bethlehem, Prestige, Epic, Riverside, Savoy, Mode, New Jazz, Chesky, Kokopelli, and, most notably, Atlantic. Mann died on July 1, 2003, after a prolonged struggle with prostate cancer; his final album, Beyond Brooklyn, was issued posthumously by Telarc in 2004.