Legendary musician and drummer, Harvey Mason has been conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of West London.
Harvey’s career took off in the late 60’s after performing with legends such as Duke Ellington and Erroll Garner and a year with George Shearing from 1970-1971. After working with Shearing, Mason moved to LA and quickly became established in the studios, working in films and television. His recording career began with groundbreaking performances and compositions with Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters.
He has been hired by everyone, from Barbra Streisand to James Brown from Mary j to Herbie Hancock from Jennifer Hudson to Frank Sinatra from John Legend to the London Symphony Orchestra. One of the world’s premier drummers, Mason has earned seven Grammy nominations including one for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance.
You will have only begun to scratch the surface by identifying the masterful Harvey Mason as just a drummer.
Harvey is the founding member of the contemporary jazz ‘super group’ fOURPLAY, whose debut album sat at the top of the Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart for 34 weeks, leading to a platinum album, three subsequent gold discs, a Soul Train Music Award and 10 Grammy nominations.
As a player, his precision time keeping and versatility have put him among the most in-demand and most recorded session drummers of all time.
A gifted composer, he scored Only The Strong, Deadly Takeover and contributed to the score of The Colour Purple. He’s composed and written songs recorded by artists ranging from Nancy Wilson, Mary J. Blige, Notorius Big and T.I.
