Mike Mandel -

Mike Mandel is an American keyboardist, composer, and arranger from Yakama, Wash. He established his recording career with childhood friend Larry Coryell on Coryell, Barefoot Boy, Offering, and The Real Great Escape, then joined Coryell in the Eleventh House for the group’s mid-1970s Vanguard and Arista albums. Mandel subsequently led the Vanguard albums Sky Music and Utopia Parkway, extending the synthesizer-heavy jazz-funk language developed through his work with Coryell.

Background

Mike Mandel was born blind in 1941 and grew up in Yakima, Washington. Mandel played piano with the Pacers as a teenager at the Walk In Club, then joined the Checkers after pianist Bob Campbell left the group. The Checkers recruited guitarist Larry Coryell after a chance meeting at Korton’s Music Store in Richland. Mandel joined Coryell and saxophonist Mike Metko on the 1961 Checkers acetate “Swingin’ Summer”/“Frandajah” at Northwest Recorders in Seattle.

Mandel made an issued record appearance in August 1963 on the Jimmy Hanna and the Dynamics single “Genevieve” (b/w “Moonlight in Vermont”), with Mandel on organ and Coryell on guitar. The Frantics hired Mandel for weekday dates at Dave’s Fifth Avenue in Seattle that fall while keyboardist Charlie Schoning attended the University of Washington. Mandel took over the Black & Tan organ chair in summer 1964 and led a trio with guitarist Lee Parker and drummer Don Stevenson. He also played Seattle Jazz Society functions through the same period.

Mandel entered Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1968 and studied synthesizer with instructor Mike Rendish. Mandel and Rendish adapted a braille map-drawing tool to diagram waveforms and envelope shapes for the synthesizer course. Mandel reunited with Coryell on the 1969 Vanguard album Coryell, where he played organ and piano. Jack Bruce hired Mandel for a January–March 1970 tour alongside Coryell and Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, with dates in Britain and the United States.

Mandel backed Coryell on the 1971–73 albums Barefoot Boy, Offering, and The Real Great Escape. Coryell also used Mandel in the related touring group Foreplay and the subsequent Eleventh House, formed with trumpeter Randy Brecker, bassist Danny Trifan, and drummer Alphonse Mouzon. The quintet recorded Introducing the Eleventh House with Larry Coryell at Vanguard’s 23rd Street Studio. Mandel remained through Level One and Aspects, where his compositions included “Level One,” “Diedra,” “Pyramids,” and “Woman of Truth and Future.”

Mandel also developed a parallel profile as a synthesizer specialist and appeared on the RMI demonstration album Harmonic Synthesizer and Keyboard Computer, where he performed the Keyboard Computer piece “Mandel Does It.” Producer Danny Weiss brought Mandel into the Vanguard studio network through the Coryell and Eleventh House sessions, then worked with him around the Players Association projects of the late 1970s. Weiss brought Mandel into Vanguard’s 23rd Street Studio in spring 1978 for the sessions that became Sky Music.

Discography: