Jay Mabin is a familiar name to Northwest audiences. For 25 years Jay has been a mainstay on the jazz blues scene having performed with Bo Diddley, Bud Shank, Eddie Shaw, Fenton Robinson and Carter Jefferson among many others.
Born in Chicago in 1955, his musical influences began at an early age when he was exposed to a wide variety of jazz and blues both at home and at numerous coffee houses and concert stages in the Northwest. When Jay was 14 years old he had the opportunity to perform with the legendary blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Terry became his mentor and showed him the basics of the blues. Jay also studied with jazz greats Toots Thielemans and Howard Levy whose revolutionary systems of harmonics for the harmonica has given Jay the tools to create one of the truly original voices in jazz harmonica.