Music
Bennie Maupin
born 1940 · jazz saxophonist, bass clarinetist, flutist
Detroit-born reed player whose bass clarinet is heard on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi and Headhunters bands.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 86- Detroit years
- 1940–early 1960s
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Bennie Maupin was born in Detroit in 1940 and grew up in the city's rich postwar jazz culture before moving to New York in the 1960s. There he worked with Marion Brown, Roy Haynes, Horace Silver, McCoy Tyner and Lee Morgan, and joined the cooperative group Almanac with Cecil McBee. His dark, searching bass clarinet became one of the signature sounds of jazz-rock fusion when Miles Davis used him on Bitches Brew (1970), followed by Jack Johnson, On the Corner and Big Fun. He was a core member of Herbie Hancock's experimental Mwandishi sextet and of the Headhunters, playing on Head Hunters (1973), Thrust and Man-Child and co-writing material for the band. His own ECM album The Jewel in the Lotus (1974) is admired for its meditative, open sound; he became a Buddhist in 1970. He lost his California home and instruments in the Eaton Fire in January 2025. In 2022 he recorded a tribute to fellow Detroit reed master Yusef Lateef.
Highlights
- Bass clarinet on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew (1970)
- Member of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi and Headhunters bands
- Played on Head Hunters (1973)
- Leader album The Jewel in the Lotus (ECM, 1974)
- Symphonic Tone Poem for Brother Yusef (2022), a Yusef Lateef tribute