Charles Mingus - Reincarnation Of A Lovebird 1960

A virtuoso bassist, composer, pianist, arranger, and bandleader, Charles Mingus cut an indelible path through 20th century jazz, creating a legacy that continues to influence, instruct, and enrich. His powerful tone and unshakeable rhythmic facility drove an original music, ambitious yet earthy. Influenced musically and culturally by Black gospel, Mingus drew inspiration from each sound that grabbed him -- blues, New Orleans jazz, swing, bop, Latin traditions, classical, and avant-garde -- and adapted them for his ensembles. Influenced by Duke Ellington, Mingus grafted the maestro's harmonic innovations and swing onto gutbucket blues, dissonance, and abrupt rhythmic and meter changes. His important '50s albums -- Pithecanthropus Erectus, The Clown, Mingus Ah Um, Blues and Roots -- offered traditional notation, oral dictation, and space for his sidemen to improvise. Further, Mingus introduced many future jazz luminaries and leaders through his bands including Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Dannie Richmond, Don Pullen, George Adams, Jimmy Knepper, and Jack Walrath. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - Mingus Moves 1973

The stars aligned when Charles Mingus recorded Mingus Moves as his return to Atlantic Records in 1973 after a decade with other labels. The great composer and bassist brought with him a new band that included pianist Don Pullen and tenor saxophonist/flutist George Adams (laying the foundation for their stellar quartet in the 1980s). It also marked the return of longtime drummer Dannie Richmond to his group after several years away -- the kit man rejoined Mingus the day before these sessions occurred. Rounding out the quintet was trumpeter and teacher Ronald Hampton, who was playing with Sam Rivers at the same time. Mingus Moves stands with Changes One and Changes Two as the very best of his late work. Even the two session bonus tracks added by producer Joel Dorn at the end of the 20th century underscore this impression. The nine-cut set is populated with focused compositions by Mingus, Pullen, and Adams, with contributions from Doug Hammond and Sy Johnson. Opener "Canon" is a Latin-tinged modal ballad with a circular melody that hovers between Adams and Hampton amid moody piano, contrasting cumbia and West African rhythms. "Opus 4" is finger-popping hard bop with a fantastically knotty head shared by the horns. Pullen's bright chords and legato fills add flair to Adams' muscular tenor solo. Hammond appears as a vocalist duetting with Honi Gordon on his "Moves," a deeply spiritual cut the band articulates like a sacred hymn. Johnson's "Wee" is a hard-swinging post-bop showcase for the amazing and intuitive dialogue between Adams and Pullen. The tenorist goes deep and wide, following the pianist's ever-expanding harmonic ideas as Mingus and Richmond drive them on. The saxist's "Flowers for a Lady" is a breezy, midtempo groover whose rhythms are centered between Afro-Latin Caribbean and Brazilian sounds with a lovely solo from Hampton. Pullen's "Newcomer" is a conduit for his most intimate tonal inquiries. Adams places first his flute, then his tenor in service to its open, airy, Ellingtonian melody as Hampton joins him in the front line. The original set closer was Mingus' ten-minute "Opus 3," a tough post-bop jam with Hampton holding down the head as Adams pushes every chorus to the breaking point before the rhythm section drives it toward a stomping gospel blues à la "Better Git It in Yo' Soul." Pullen flips it, returning to forceful hard bop in his solo. Mingus and Richmond usher the changes while buoying the soloists. Pullen's "Big Alice" kicks off with a Bo Diddley-esque shuffle, with gospel tropes stitched into the swinging NOLA-styled R&B cadences. Adams, Hampton, and Pullen play soulful vamps together up front and offer tight, celebratory solos as Mingus and Richmond forcefully assert the soaring groove. There isn't a weak moment on Mingus Moves. It is not only a solid entry in the bassist's catalog, but it's an undercelebrated yet necessary encounter with the artist at his late best. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um 1959

Charles Mingus' debut for Columbia, Mingus Ah Um is a stunning summation of the bassist's talents and probably the best reference point for beginners. While there's also a strong case for The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady as his best work overall, it lacks Ah Um's immediate accessibility and brilliantly sculpted individual tunes. Mingus' compositions and arrangements were always extremely focused, assimilating individual spontaneity into a firm consistency of mood, and that approach reaches an ultra-tight zenith on Mingus Ah Um. The band includes longtime Mingus stalwarts already well versed in his music, like saxophonists John Handy, Shafi Hadi, and Booker Ervin; trombonists Jimmy Knepper and Willie Dennis; pianist Horace Parlan; and drummer Dannie Richmond. Their razor-sharp performances tie together what may well be Mingus' greatest, most emotionally varied set of compositions. At least three became instant classics, starting with the irrepressible spiritual exuberance of signature tune "Better Get It in Your Soul," taken in a hard-charging 6/8 and punctuated by joyous gospel shouts. "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is a slow, graceful elegy for Lester Young, who died not long before the sessions. The sharply contrasting "Fables of Faubus" is a savage mockery of segregationist Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, portrayed musically as a bumbling vaudeville clown (the scathing lyrics, censored by skittish executives, can be heard on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus). The underrated "Boogie Stop Shuffle" is bursting with aggressive swing, and elsewhere there are tributes to Mingus' most revered influences: "Open Letter to Duke" is inspired by Duke Ellington and "Jelly Roll" is an idiosyncratic yet affectionate nod to jazz's first great composer, Jelly Roll Morton. It simply isn't possible to single out one Mingus album as definitive, but Mingus Ah Um comes the closest. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - Mysterious Blues 1960

Although a Mosaic box set claims to have all of Charles Mingus's Candid recordings, this CD, in addition to four duplications from the box, contains three alternate takes not included elsewhere: "Body and Soul" (featuring trumpeter Roy Eldridge and altoist Eric Dolphy), the Dannie Richmond drum solo "Melody from the Drums" and a septet runthrough on "Reincarnation of a Love Bird." A fine introduction into the music of Charles Mingus, this set still cannot compare to the Mosaic box which has the Mingus's pianoless quartet with Dolphy, Richmond and trumpeter Ted Curson, but completists will have to acquire both releases. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - Mingus Moves 1973

On this Atlantic LP, Charles Mingus introduced his new group which at the time included trumpeter Ronald Hampton, tenor-saxophonist George Adams, pianist Don Pullen and his longtime drummer Dannie Richmond. Together this excellent quintet performed seven recent compositions including one ("Moves") that features the vocals of Honey Gordon and Doug Hammond. Only three of the pieces are by Mingus but all of the music is greatly influenced by his searching and unpredictable style. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - Cumbia & Jazz Fusion 1978

As Charles Mingus' career (and life) moved into its final phase, his recordings exclusively featured large (and often potentially unruly) ensembles. This CD, which contains two rather long performances originally recorded as soundtracks for films, is better than most of what followed. "c" has a large percussion section and quite a few woodwinds along with trumpeter Jack Walrath, tenor saxophonist Ricky Ford, and trombonist Jimmy Knepper while "Music for 'Todo Modo'" adds five horns to Mingus' quintet. The music is episodic but generally holds its own away from the film. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - La Spezia 1975

Irascible, demanding, bullying, and probably a genius, Charles Mingus cut himself a uniquely iconoclastic path through jazz in the middle of the 20th century, creating a legacy that became universally lauded only after he was no longer around to bug people. As a bassist, he knew few peers, blessed with a powerful tone and pulsating sense of rhythm, capable of elevating the instrument into the front line of a band. But had he been just a string player, few would know his name today. Rather, he was the greatest bass-playing leader/composer jazz has ever known, one who always kept his ears and fingers on the pulse, spirit, spontaneity, and ferocious expressive power of jazz.

Intensely ambitious yet often earthy in expression, simultaneously radical and deeply traditional,Mingus' music took elements from everything he had experienced -- from gospel and blues through New Orleans jazz, swing, bop, Latin music, modern classical music, even the jazz avant-garde. His touchstone was Duke Ellington, but Mingus took the sonic blend and harmonies of Ellingtonia much further, throwing in abrasive dissonances and abrupt changes in meter and tempo, introducing tremendously exhilarating accelerations that generated a momentum of their own. While his early works were written out in a classical fashion, by the mid-'50s, he had worked out a new way of getting his unconventional visions across, dictating the parts to his musicians while allowing plenty of room for the players' own musical personalities and ideas. He was also a formidable pianist, fully capable of taking that role in a group -- which he did in his 1961-62 bands, hiring another bassist to fill in for him.

Along the way, Mingus made a lot of enemies, causing sometimes violent confrontations on and off the bandstand. A big man physically, he used his bulk as a weapon of intimidation, and he was not above halting concerts to chew out inattentive audiences or errant sidemen, even cashiering a musician now and then on the spot. At one of his concerts in Philadelphia -- and a memorial to a dead colleague at that -- he broke up the show by slamming the piano lid down, nearly smashing his pianist's hands, and then punched trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth. For a savage physical portrait of the emotions that seethed within him, check out the photo on the cover of Duke Ellington's Money Jungle; Mingus looks as if he is about to kill someone. But he could also be a gentle giant as his moods permitted, and that quality can be felt in some of his music.

Mingus felt the lash of racial prejudice very intensely -- which, combined with the frustrations of making it in the music business on his own terms, found its outlet in music. Indeed, some of his bizarre titles were political in nature, such as Fables of Faubus (referring to the Arkansas governor who tried to keep Little Rock schools segregated), "Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me" or "Remember Rockefeller at Attica." But he could also be wildly humorous, the most notorious example being "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" (later shortened to "Gunslinging Bird").

Born in a Nogales Army camp, Mingus was shortly thereafter taken to the Watts district of Los Angeles, where he grew up. The first music he heard was that of the church -- the only music his stepmother allowed around the house -- but one day, despite the threat of punishment, he tuned in Duke Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" on his father's crystal set, his first exposure to jazz. He tried to learn the trombone at six and then the cello, but he became fed up with incompetent teachers and ended up on the double bass by the time he reached high school. His early teachers were Red Callender and an ex-New York Philharmonic bassist named Herman Rheinschagen, and he also studied composition with Lloyd Reese. A proto-third stream composition written by Mingus in 1940-41, "Half-Mast Inhibition" (recorded in 1960), reveals an extraordinary timbral imagination for a teenager.

As a bass prodigy, Mingus performed with Kid Ory in Barney Bigard's group in 1942 and went on the road with Louis Armstrong the following year. He would gravitate toward the R&B side of the road later in the '40s, working with the Lionel Hampton band in 1947-48, backing R&B and jazz performers, and leading ensembles in various idioms under the name Baron Von Mingus. He began to attract real national attention as a bassist for Red Norvo's trio with Tal Farlow in 1950-51, and after leaving that group, he moved to New York and began working with several stellar jazz performers, including Billy Taylor, Stan Getz and Art Tatum. He was the bassist in the famous 1953 Massey Hall concert in Toronto with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Max Roach, and he briefly joined his idolEllington, where he had the dubious distinction of being the only man Duke ever personally fired from his band.

Around this time, Mingus tried to make himself into a rallying point for the jazz community. He founded Debut Records in partnership with his then-wife Celia and Roach in 1952, seeing to it that the label recorded a wide variety of jazz from bebop to experimental music until its demise in 1957. Among Debut's most notable releases were the Massey Hall concert, an album by Miles Davis, and severalMingus sessions that traced the development of his ideas. He also contributed composed works to the Jazz Composers' Workshop from 1953 to 1955, and later in '55, he founded his own Jazz Workshop repertory group that found him moving away from strict notation toward his looser, dictated manner of composing.

By 1956, with the release of Pithecanthropus Erectus(Atlantic), Mingus had clearly found himself as a composer and leader, creating pulsating, ever-shifting compendiums of jazz's past and present, feeling his way into the free jazz of the future. For the next decade, he would pour forth an extraordinary body of work for several labels, including key albums like The Clown, New Tijuana Moods, Mingus Ah Um,Blues and Roots and Oh Yeah; standards like "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," "Better Git It in Your Soul," "Haitian Fight Song" and "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting," and extended works like Meditations on Integration and Epitaph.

Through ensembles ranging in size from a quartet to an 11-piece big band, a procession of noted sidemen likeEric Dolphy, Jackie McLean, J.R. Monterose, Jimmy Knepper, Roland Kirk, Booker Ervin, and John Handy would pass, with Mingus' commanding bass and volatile personality pushing his musicians further than some of them might have liked to go. The groups with the great Dolphy (heard live onMingus at Antibes) in the early '60s might have been his most dynamic, and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963), an extended ballet for big band that captures the anguished/joyful split Minguspersonality in full, passionately wild cry -- may be his masterpiece.

However, Mingus' obsessive efforts to free himself from the economic hazards and larceny of the music business nearly undermined his sanity in the 1960s (indeed, some of the liner notes for The Black Saint album were written by his psychologist, Dr. Edmund Pollock). He tried to compete with the Newport festivals by organizing his own Jazz Artists Guild in 1960 that purported to give musicians more control over their work, but that collapsed with the by-now-routine rancor that accompanied so many Mingus ventures. A calamitous, self-presented New York Town Hall concert in 1962; another, shorter-lived recording venture, Charles Mingus Records, in 1964-65; the failure to find a publisher for his autobiography Beneath the Underdog, and other setbacks broke his bank account and ultimately his spirit. He quit music almost entirely from 1966 until 1969, resuming performances in June 1969 only because he desperately needed money.

Financial angels in the forms of a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition, the publication of Beneath the Underdog in 1971, and the purchase of his Debut masters by Fantasy boosted Mingus' spirits, and a new stimulating Columbia album Let My Children Hear Music thrust him back into public attention. By 1974, he had formed a new young quintet, anchored by his loyal drummer Dannie Richmondand featuring Jack Walrath, Don Pullen and George Adams, and more compositions came forth, including the massive, kaleidoscopic, Colombian-based "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" that began its life as a film score.

Respect was growing, but time, alas, was running out, for in fall 1977, Mingus was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), and by the following year, he was unable to play the bass. Though confined to a wheelchair, he nevertheless carried on, leading recording sessions, and receiving honors at a White House concert on June 18, 1978. His last project was a collaboration,Mingus with folk-rock singer Joni Mitchell, who wrote lyrics to Mingus' music and included samples ofMingus' voice on the record.

Since his death, Mingus' importance and fame increased remarkably, thanks in large part to the determined efforts of Sue Mingus, his widow. A posthumous repertory group, Mingus Dynasty, was formed almost immediately after his death, and that concept was expanded in 1991 into the excitingMingus Big Band, which has resurrected many of Mingus' most challenging scores. Epitaph was finally reconstructed, performed and recorded in 1989 to general acclaim, and several box sets of portions of Mingus' output have been issued by Rhino/Atlantic, Mosaic and Fantasy. Beyond re-creations, the Mingus influence can be heard on Branford Marsalis' early Scenes in the City album, and especially in the big band writing of his brother Wynton. The Mingus blend of wildly colorful eclecticism solidly rooted in jazz history should serve his legacy well in a future increasingly populated by young conservatives who want to pay their respects to tradition and try something different.

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Charles Mingus - Mysterious Blues 1960

Although a Mosaic box set claims to have all of Charles Mingus's Candid recordings, this CD, in addition to four duplications from the box, contains three alternate takes not included elsewhere: "Body and Soul" (featuring trumpeterRoy Eldridge and altoist Eric Dolphy), the Dannie Richmond drum solo "Melody from the Drums" and a septet runthrough on "Reincarnation of a Love Bird." A fine introduction into the music of Charles Mingus, this set still cannot compare to the Mosaic box which has the Mingus's pianoless quartet with Dolphy, Richmond and trumpeter Ted Curson, but completists will have to acquire both releases. AMG.

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Charles Mingus - Let My Children Hear Music 1972

On the original LP issued by Columbia, Mingus thanked producer Teo Macero for "his untiring efforts in producing the best album I have ever made." From his deathbed in Mexico in 1979 he sent a message to Sy Johnson (who was responsible for many of the arrangements on the album), saying that Let My Children Hear Music was the record he liked most from his career. Although Mingus' small-group recordings are the ones most often cited as his premier works, this album does, in fact, rank at the top of his oeuvre and compares favorably with the finest large-ensemble jazz recordings by anyone, including Ellington. The pieces had been brewing over the years, one from as far back as 1939, and had been given more or less threadbare performances on occasion, but this was his first chance to record them with a sizable, well-rehearsed orchestra. Still, there were difficulties, both in the recording and afterward. The exact personnel is sketchy, largely due to contractual issues, several arrangers were imported to paste things together, making the true authorship of some passages questionable, and Macero (as he did with various Miles Davis projects) edited freely and sometimes noticeably. The listener will happily put aside all quibbles, however, when the music is heard. From the opening, irresistible swing of "The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jiveass Slippers" to the swirling depths of "The I of Hurricane Sue," these songs are some of the most glorious, imaginative, and full of life ever recorded. Each piece has its own strengths, but special mention should be made of two. "Adagio Ma Non Troppo" is based entirely on a piano improvisation played by Mingus in 1964 and issued on Mingus Plays Piano. Its logical structure, playful nature, and crystalline moments of beauty would be astounding in a polished composition; the fact that it was originally improvised is almost unbelievable. "Hobo Ho," a holy-roller powerhouse featuring the impassioned tenor of James Moody, reaches an incredible fever pitch, the backing horns volleying riff after riff at the soloists, the entire composition teetering right on the edge of total chaos. Let My Children Hear Music is a towering achievement and a must for any serious jazz fan. The CD issue includes one track, "Taurus in the Arena of Life," not on the original LP, but unfortunately gives only snippets from the Mingus essay that accompanied the album. That essay, covering enormous territory, reads like an inspired Mingus bass solo and should be sought out by interested listeners. One can't recommend this album highly enough. AMG. 

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Charles Mingus - Mingus Three 1957

Most often heard in large ensembles and rarely in a trio context, Charles Mingus joined forces with pianist Hampton Hawes for this 1957 studio date. It features four standards, two originals by the bassist, and a jam by the group credited to Hawes. While there's nothing particularly arresting or startling about the date, the relationship between the two ostensible co-leaders is a good case study in group dynamics when deference between two strong-willed individualists turns into a certain amount of compromise. Drummer Danny Richmond is not so much the peacemaker or even mediator, and he is the one with the most common sense who actually pulls this triad into a simpatico unit, cooling the embers with his steady, willful-in-its-own-right playing. As complex as the music of Mingus tends to be, it's nice to hear what he does in a more simplified area. His "Back Home Blues" is so basic as his bass leads out, while theMingus chart "Dizzy Moods" is deeper within an easier swing, allowing darker colors to fully but slowly blossom. Richmond favors the tambourine on "Dizzy Moods" and the hip "A Night in Tunisia"-styled take of "Summertime," while a faster "Hamp's New Blues" bops along effortlessly, chided by the drummer's accents. Hawes shines in his gilded, rearranged concept of "Yesterdays," intentionally messing up the changes for the first few bars before settling in, while slowing the Vernon Duke evergreen "I Can't Get Started" (always a personal staple of the Mingus book) to a crawl. The most intriguing selection comes at the end, as "Laura" sounds derived from "Tea for Two," with the hardy upright of Mingussallying forth about this imaginary woman made real through this poignant song. Some six years later,Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Max Roach would record the controversial trio effort Money Jungle, so in many ways this album is a prelude to that all-star combination, both one-shots and definitely sidebars to the careers of all of these brilliant jazzmen. AMG.

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