Guest akanalog Posted July 18, 2005 Report Share Posted July 18, 2005 was mike mandel, keyboard player for the eleventh house, blind? i guess he isn't so well known-i like the eleventh house stuff and i also have a few mandel as a leader albums. but i noticed on one, "sky music", he thanks a braille orgainzation. i can't find much information on mike mandel online-but was he blind? i just find it weird if he is blind and i didn't know since many artists, and i don't mean to sound like a jerk, but their blindness is a main thing you hear about (eric kloss being an example...) it just makes mandel's playing (i like wacked out ARP-ish stuff) more impressive-especially because those old analog synths had so many knobs and dials. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted July 18, 2005 Report Share Posted July 18, 2005 Looks like it according to this page: http://www.ski.org/Rehab/DBGilden/JWilliams/acknow.html Yes, those old synths. . . have been enjoying the 90 minute or so "Making of Poptical" section of Ed Motta's dvd where they are in the studio recording "Poptical" and one of the three keyboardist is playing/programming an onld analog synth and it all looks so fun! They get some great keyboard sounds on that ablbum! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest akanalog Posted July 18, 2005 Report Share Posted July 18, 2005 i found this page, but wasn't sure it was the same mike mandel... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted July 18, 2005 Report Share Posted July 18, 2005 I believe it is. Also there is a link for a page called "Extra Raw" on a google search that won't open for me, but the breif summary page mentions "Eleventh House keyoard musician, the blind Mike Mandel". . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest akanalog Posted July 18, 2005 Report Share Posted July 18, 2005 then i am shocked that i have never known this before, just because it is usually made into a big deal as far as jazz musicians go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GA Russell Posted July 19, 2005 Report Share Posted July 19, 2005 Yes, he is/was blind. I saw him in Boston with Larry Coryell's group Foreplay which featured Steve Marcus in August of '72. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
furtive_vole Posted December 24, 2009 Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 Yes, he is/was blind. I saw him in Boston with Larry Coryell's group Foreplay which featured Steve Marcus in August of '72. Four years later - I've just come across this thread when searching for something else. I met Mike Mandel a couple of times, in London & New York, around 1978/79 in connection with Players Association. As I recall, he had grown up in an impoverished rural community in somewhere like Georgia. He developed glaucoma at the age of 8 which went undiagnosed or untreated, and as an adult had some recollection of a sighted childhood. At Blind School the kids were taught very few skills to support independent living - not even using a white cane! The only options were basket making or piano tuning - he chose the latter. I'm afraid I now forget the details of how he got into jazz funk & electronics. Mike lived in an apartment block in Manhatten. He had total confidence about walking out into the street to the local stores - without cane or guide dog - without being run down or ripped off. An example to us all. Does anyone know what he went on to do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted December 24, 2009 Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 Yes, he is blind. I saw him with Larry Coryell and The Eleventh House, opening for Capt. Beefheart at Town Hall in NYC on 10/28/72. Good keyboard player. And you're right, he didn't define himself by his blindness - he didn't wear sunglasses, and no mention was made of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marktruly Posted March 29, 2010 Report Share Posted March 29, 2010 Yes, Mike is blind as you've already determined. I took keyboard lessons from him some years back. He ran a recording studio out of his Manhattan apartment and was in hot demand among New York songwriters. He used voice-assisted software to control his computer and was amazingly dexterous for a blind person running a complex computer program. One day when I arrived for my lesson Mike was finishing up a demo for a couple of songwriters, one of whom was a British guy he introduced as Keith. Later, during our lesson, Mike mentioned that 'Keith has a very valuable piece of publishing'. When I asked what it was, he said that Keith had written 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'. I pretty much screamed at Mike 'That was KEITH REID?". As a huge Procol Harum fan I never quite forgave Mike for not being more clear about that. Mike is a tremendous guy but I'm no longer living in NYC and haven't heard anything about him lately. He was completely self-sufficient as you might expect from a keyboardist of his caliber. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Ptah Posted March 29, 2010 Report Share Posted March 29, 2010 So that is why he was squinting so much during the Eleventh House concert I saw in 1975 (they opened for Frank Zappa). He did not wear dark glasses onstage as some blind musicians do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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