VA • Free Jazz Classics

 

 

 

John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Clifford Brown, Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd, Modern Jazz Quartet, Joshua Redman, Herbie Mann, Freddie Hubbard, Jaco Pastorius, Ahmad Jamal …

 

Charles Mingus • Farewell

 

Hazel Scott • Relaxed Piano Moods

Nacida en Trinidad y Tobago, a los 4 años su familia se traslada a Nueva York, reconocida como un niña prodigio musical, recibió una beca para estudiar piano clásico en la Juilliard School a lla edad de ocho años. De adolescente, tocó piano y la trompeta con su madre "Alma Long Scott" en una banda de jazz de chicas y esporádicamente con Lil Hardin Armstrong.

A lo largo de los años 1930 y 1940, Hazel incursionó principalmente en el jazz, el blues, boogie-woogie y música clásica en varios clubes nocturnos.

Fue una de las primeras mujeres afro-americanas en lograr papeles principales en películas y ya en los años '50 en en tener un programa de televisión. Lamentablemente fue cancelado por haber sido llamada a declarar ante el Comité de Actividades Antiamericanas, por su oposición al segregación racial y al macartismo. Emigró a Francia en donde alternó entre alguno papeles en films y giras europeas.

Regresó a EEUU en 1967, siguió tocando de vez en cuando en los clubes nocturnos, mientras que también aparece en la televisión hasta el año de su muerte, en 1981.

Del álbum de 1955, Relaxed Piano Moods. Charles Mingus y Max Roach cantaron Hazel Scott para grabar para su sello independiente, Debut, en 1954. Trajeron a Rudy Van Gelder para grabar este álbum con Scott en Nueva York en enero de 1955. Scott fue un prodigio. Fue a Juilliard a las ocho, recorrió el mundo tocando el piano clásico, tuvo su propio programa de radio en 1936 y apareció en Broadway en 1938. Fusionó el jazz y la música clásica y estuvo en cinco películas durante los años 40, incluyendo "Rhapsody in Blue". "Incluso tuvo su propio programa de televisión," The Hazel Scott Show "en 1950.

https://oncewasanote.com/2015/06/08/june-8-2015-hazel-scott-like-someone-to-love/

///////

Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a Trinidadian-born jazz and classical pianist and singer; she also performed as herself in several films.

Born in Port of Spain, Hazel was taken at the age of four by her mother to New York City. Recognized early as a musical prodigy, Scott was given scholarships from the age of eight to study at the Juilliard School. She began performing in a jazz band in her teens and was performing on radio at age 16.

She was prominent as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first person of color to have a TV show, The Hazel Scott Show,[1] featuring a variety of entertainment. Her career in America faltered after she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era. Scott subsequently moved to Paris in the late 1950s and performed in France, not returning to the United States until 1967.  MORE ...

The disc presented here is Relaxed Piano Moods, with Charles Mingus and Max Roach.

From the 1955 album, Relaxed Piano Moods.   Charles Mingus and Max Roach singed Hazel Scott to record for their independent label, Debut, in 1954.  They brought on Rudy Van Gelder to record this album with Scott in New York in January 1955.  Scott was a prodigy.  She went to Juilliard at eight,  toured the world playing classical piano, had her own radio show in 1936 and appeared on Broadway in 1938.  She fused jazz and classical music and was in five films during the ’40s, including “Rhapsody in Blue.”  She even had her own television show, “The Hazel Scott Show” in 1950.

https://oncewasanote.com/2015/06/08/june-8-2015-hazel-scott-like-someone-to-love/

  

 

 

 

Charles Mingus • Lionel Hampton Presents the Music of Charles Mingus

 

Description from Collectors' Choice Music / Who's Who in Jazz:
Founded in 1977 by Lionel Hampton, the Who's Who in Jazz label existed as a means to present to the world the best musicians that the jazz world had to offer. With Lionel chairing the recording sessions (and also featuring on several of the sessions himself), these recordings have truly earned their title featuring jazz greats such as Buddy Rich, Charles Mingus, Terumasa Hino, Sonny Stitt, Teddy Wilson, Stéphane Grappelli and Dave Brubeck, amidst the many others. Released in 1977, this session sees Mingus and Hampton invite Gerry Mulligan, Danny Richmond, Peter Matt, Bob Nelums, Richard Ford, Paul Jeffrey, Woody Shaw and Jack Walrath to showcase an array of classic jazz compositions including 'Slop', 'Fables of Faubus' and 'Duke Ellington's Sound of Love'.
https://www.ccmusic.com/charles-mingus-lionel-hampton-presents-the-music-of-charles-mingus/730167321181

///////

Descripción de Collectors' Choice Music / Who's Who in Jazz:
Fundado en 1977 por Lionel Hampton, el sello Who's Who in Jazz existió como un medio para presentar al mundo a los mejores músicos que el mundo del jazz tenía para ofrecer. Con Lionel presidiendo las sesiones de grabación (y también participando en varias de ellas), estas grabaciones han ganado verdaderamente su título, con grandes del jazz como Buddy Rich, Charles Mingus, Terumasa Hino, Sonny Stitt, Teddy Wilson, Stéphane Grappelli y Dave Brubeck, entre muchos otros. Publicado en 1977, esta sesión ve a Mingus y Hampton invitar a Gerry Mulligan, Danny Richmond, Peter Matt, Bob Nelums, Richard Ford, Paul Jeffrey, Woody Shaw y Jack Walrath a mostrar una serie de composiciones clásicas del jazz incluyendo 'Slop', 'Fables of Faubus' y 'Duke Ellington's Sound of Love'.
https://www.ccmusic.com/charles-mingus-lionel-hampton-presents-the-music-of-charles-mingus/730167321181

Myself When I Am Realː The Life and Music of Charles Mingus

 

Charles Mingus was one of the most innovative jazz musicians of the 20th century, and ranks with Charles Ives and Duke Ellington as one of America's greatest composers. By temperament, he was a high-strung and sensitive romantic, a towering figure whose tempestuous personal life found powerfully coherent expression in the ever-shifting textures of his music. Now, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro strips away the myths shrouding "Jazz's Angry Man," revealing Mingus as more complex than even his close friends knew. Written in a lively, novelistic style, Myself When I Am Real draws on dozens of new interviews and previously untapped letters and archival materials to explore the intricate connections between this extraordinary man and the extraordinary music he made.

VA • Free Jazz Classics

 

 

 

John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Clifford Brown, Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd, Modern Jazz Quartet, Joshua Redman, Herbie Mann, Freddie Hubbard, Jaco Pastorius, Ahmad Jamal …

 

Charles Mingus With Hampton Hawes & Danny Richmond ‎• Mingus Three

LP Review:

Charles Mingus is the volcanic, inflammably honest bass virtuoso, composer and Jazz Workshop leader whose strength of musical personality has made his playing and writing instantly identifiable, however intermittently controversial. Hampton Hawes, Los Angeles-born and almost thirty, has been welcomed by several critics and a number of musicians as an unusually earthy and deeply swinging representative of mainstream modernism that flows directly from Charlie Parker whom Hawes acknowledges as his primary influence. The drummer is Danny Richmond, a regular member of Mingus’ Jazz Workshop unit.

Yesterday's is a head arrangement in which the memories are collected at a brisker tempo than is usual in approaching the standard. Back Home Blues is Mingus’, and it was his evident goal to create a down home feeling and particularly, as he explains it, “to make Hamp play even more basic blues than he has been accustomed to.”

Can’t Get Started, a song that Mingus has been attracted to for some time is played within the framework of Mingus’ alteration of the changes. Hamp’s New Blues, described by Mingus as “bebop blues” illustrates a comment by English critic, Alun Morgan, about Hawes and the blues to the effect that “Hawes continues to extract freshness and beauty from this timeless material.”

Mingus’ intense plunge into Summertime is based, he acknowledges, “on a pedal point suggested by Lee Kraft, who was supervisor of the date. Dizzy Moods came into existence because Mingus admired Dizzy Gillespie’s Woodyn’ You. He altered the original chord pattern, wrote an original melody on that altered sequence, called Dizzy on the phone, played him the song, and obtained Dizzy’s benediction. Laura exemplifies that no matter how often a listener may have heard a song (and Laura has been one of the most ubiquitous wraiths in music in many years) jazzmen of intractable individuality like Mingus can transmute the most familiar music into quite an unexpected, self-startling experience.

This trio session is considerably different from most trio dates. Two strong personalities arc present in Mingus and Hawes, and although there is an overall feeling of fusion, of tempered rapport, this as much as dialogue between Mingus and Hawes with punctuation from Richmond as it is a group expression.

Mingus and Hawes are contrasting spirits, musically and off the stand. Hawes is rather diffident and disinclined to verbalize about music. When three Down Beat critics once reviewed his trio and invited him to answer their reviews, one of which was fiercely negative, he never replied to any of the several requests for a statement made to him. Mingus, on the other hand, is a celebrated writer of open letters to the music magazines, and is the Tom Paine of modern jazz in his polemical zeal to make his positions clear. Had the same three critics reviewed Mingus, it might have taken most of an issue to print his answers.

In music, Hawes, as indicated previously, is in the direct Parker line with a partial indebtedness to Bud Powell, among others. His source of most impressive strength is his beat and his propelling assurance in the blues. Whether he will ever develop a commandingly individual voice that will in turn influence others irremediably is difficult to predict as of this writing, because there are personal as well as musical factors involved in the working out of Hawes’ future. He. is, in any case, already an accepted professional by other jazzmen, and is an emotionally stimulating, fiercely candid player who is easily assimilable and who intends to keep the basic jazz language and direction, as he conceives them, alive and meaningful.

Mingus’ self-expressive needs are more impatient of convention than Hawes’ and yet even more plungingly appreciative of tradition. Mingus’ roots go far back into blues and old church music (as do Hawes whose father was a preacher and whose earliest musical memories are spirituals) but also into the cries and musical earth of other cultures as well. As a composer, he is a blazing believer in form following function, and he never composes except from an urgent desire to communicate a feeling, a lifeview, an anger or a joy. As articulate as Mingus is verbally, he feels—and rightly-—that his most viable and self-revealing form of communication is through music. There are his intimately explosive bass solos in which the instrument becomes so annealed to him that, to paraphrase Yeats, a mesmerized listener may not know instantly where the bass begins and Mingus ends; and there is composed music, much of it transmitted orally and aurally to his sidemen, a body of music that is as searingly personal and yet universally aware of and defiant of mortality as any body of composed work in written jazz.

The meeting of the two in this album is provocative, all the more so because both—health and wars willing—have the major section of their futures ahead of them. Hawes continues to move in the main road; Mingus, having absorbed the map, backwards and to the present, of the main route, is striking out on his own path. In ten years, they might well meet: or the main road may have been widened, in part by Mingus’ impact, so that he has become conventional; or he may have, as I believe, been found to have been in the mainstream all along— except that he was swimming deeper than most.

—Nat Hentoff, co-editor, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya and Jazz Makers (Rinehart)

///////

Reseña del LP:

Charles Mingus es un virtuoso del bajo, inflamablemente honesto, compositor y líder de talleres de jazz cuya fuerza de personalidad musical ha hecho que su forma de tocar y escribir sea identificable al instante, aunque sea intermitentemente controvertida. Hampton Hawes, nacido en Los Ángeles y con casi treinta años de edad, ha sido acogido por varios críticos y un número de músicos como un representante inusualmente terrenal y profundamente pendenciero de la corriente principal del modernismo que fluye directamente de Charlie Parker, a quien Hawes reconoce como su principal influencia. El baterista es Danny Richmond, miembro habitual de la unidad de talleres de jazz de Mingus.

El de ayer es un arreglo de cabeza en el que los recuerdos se recogen a un tempo más rápido de lo habitual al acercarse al estándar. Back Home Blues es de Mingus, y su objetivo evidente era crear un sentimiento de "down home" y, en particular, como él mismo lo explica, "hacer que Hamp toque un blues aún más básico de lo que está acostumbrado".

Can't Get Started, una canción por la que Mingus se siente atraído desde hace tiempo, se toca en el marco de la alteración de los cambios de Mingus. Hamp's New Blues, descrito por Mingus como "bebop blues" ilustra un comentario del crítico inglés Alun Morgan sobre Hawes y el blues en el sentido de que "Hawes sigue extrayendo frescura y belleza de este material intemporal".

La intensa zambullida de Mingus en el Summertime se basa, reconoce, "en un punto de pedaleo sugerido por Lee Kraft, quien fue supervisor de la fecha. Dizzy Moods surgió porque Mingus admiraba Woodyn' You de Dizzy Gillespie. Alteró el patrón de acordes original, escribió una melodía original en esa secuencia alterada, llamó a Dizzy por teléfono, le tocó la canción y obtuvo la bendición de Dizzy. Laura ejemplifica que no importa cuán a menudo un oyente pueda haber escuchado una canción (y Laura ha sido uno de los espectros más omnipresentes en la música en muchos años) los jazzistas de individualidad intratable como Mingus pueden transmutar la música más familiar en una experiencia bastante inesperada y auto-asombrosa.

Esta sesión de trío es considerablemente diferente a la mayoría de las fechas de trío. Dos fuertes personalidades están presentes en Mingus y Hawes, y aunque hay un sentimiento general de fusión, de compenetración templada, esto tanto como el diálogo entre Mingus y Hawes con la puntuación de Richmond como es una expresión de grupo.

Mingus y Hawes son espíritus contrastantes, tanto musicalmente como fuera del stand. Hawes es bastante tímido y no se inclina a verbalizar sobre la música. Cuando tres críticos de Down Beat revisaron una vez a su trío y lo invitaron a responder a sus críticas, una de las cuales fue ferozmente negativa, nunca respondió a ninguna de las varias solicitudes de declaración que le hicieron. Mingus, por otro lado, es un célebre escritor de cartas abiertas a las revistas musicales, y es el Tom Paine del jazz moderno en su polémico afán por dejar claras sus posiciones. Si los mismos tres críticos hubieran criticado a Mingus, habría sido necesario publicar la mayor parte de un número para publicar sus respuestas.

En música, Hawes, como se ha indicado anteriormente, está en la línea directa de Parker con una deuda parcial con Bud Powell, entre otros. Su fuente de fuerza más impresionante es su ritmo y su seguridad de propulsión en el blues. Es difícil predecir si alguna vez desarrollará una voz individual dominante que a su vez influirá en otros irremediablemente a partir de este escrito, ya que hay factores tanto personales como musicales que intervienen en el desarrollo del futuro de Hawes. En cualquier caso, él ya es un profesional aceptado por otros jazzistas, y es un músico emocionalmente estimulante, ferozmente cándido, que es fácilmente asimilable y que pretende mantener vivo y significativo el lenguaje y la dirección básica del jazz, tal y como él lo concibe.

Las necesidades autoexpresivas de Mingus son más impacientes con las convenciones que con las de Hawes y aún más aprecio por la tradición. Las raíces de Mingus se remontan al blues y a la antigua música de la iglesia (al igual que Hawes, cuyo padre era predicador y cuyos primeros recuerdos musicales son espirituales), pero también a los gritos y la tierra musical de otras culturas. Como compositor, es un creyente ardiente en la función de seguimiento de la forma, y nunca compone excepto por un deseo urgente de comunicar un sentimiento, una visión de la vida, un enojo o una alegría. Tan articulado como Mingus es verbalmente, siente -y con razón- que su forma de comunicación más viable y auto-reveladora es a través de la música. Hay sus íntimamente explosivos solos de bajo en los que el instrumento se vuelve tan recocido para él que, parafraseando a Yeats, un oyente hipnotizado puede no saber instantáneamente dónde empieza el bajo y dónde termina Mingus; y hay música compuesta, mucha de ella transmitida oralmente y auditivamente a sus sidemen, un cuerpo de música que es tan ardientemente personal y sin embargo universalmente consciente y desafiante de la mortalidad como cualquier cuerpo de trabajo compuesto en el jazz escrito.

El encuentro de los dos en este disco es provocativo, sobre todo porque ambos -salud y guerras- tienen por delante la mayor parte de su futuro. Hawes sigue avanzando en la ruta principal; Mingus, habiendo absorbido el mapa, al revés y al presente, de la ruta principal, está emprendiendo su propio camino. En diez años, podrían encontrarse: o la carretera principal puede haberse ensanchado, en parte por el impacto de Mingus, de modo que se ha convertido en convencional; o puede que, como creo, se haya encontrado que estaba en la corriente principal todo el tiempo, excepto que estaba nadando más profundo que la mayoría.
-Nat Hentoff, co-editor, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya y Jazz Makers (Rinehart)

VA • A Raymond Chandler Tribute Philip Marlowe Jazz and Blues Unveiled Favorites

 

Colaboradora / Contributor: 

Quincy Jones • This Is How I Feel About Jazz

 

www.quincyjones.com ... 

 

Charles Mingus Sextet With Eric Dolphy • Cornell 1964

 

 

Review
by Thom Jurek 
In 2005, Blue Note raised the eyebrows (and expectations) of the jazz world by issuing the previously unreleased Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert from November of 1957 that literally replaces the few other recordings of the group both sonically and musically. In 2007, courtesy of Charles Mingus' widow Sue, with the help of Michael Cuscuna and Blue Note, gives us another heretofore unknown bit of jazz history with the Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy's Cornell University Concert from March 18, 1964. The reason this gig is significant is because apparently, not only didn't anybody know it was recorded, according to Gary Giddins, who wrote the (typically) excellent liners here, no one but the people who put on the show and the students who attended even knew it had taken place! The other reason for its historic importance is that it took place 17 days before the famed Town Hall concert and predated other European shows by the band by at least a month. This is significant because trumpeter Johnny Coles took ill shortly after, and Dolphy passed away a few months later. Until now, the Town Hall gig was the standard for this band, but it is safe to say with this current revelation that it will be replaced in the annals of the canon. This band -- Mingus, Dolphy, Coles, Jaki Byard, Dannie Richmond, and Clifford Jordan -- played perhaps definitive renditions of some Mingus tunes worked out previously at the Five Spot where he assembled the group, and were presumed to have first been performed, and recorded, at Town Hall. Much of the material was also performed on the European tour that followed and climaxed with an appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

These two discs contain a number of debuts and some absolutely startling solos beginning with Byard's solo set opener "ATFW You," which is four-and-a-half minutes of genius and jazz history. Mingus' solos with skeletal Byard backing on "Sophisticated Lady" for another few minutes before the band takes off in earnest with a raucous yet amazingly playful half-hour version of "Fables of Faubus," that dazzles, to say the least, in large part because of the utterly inspired bass playing by the bandleader, and the embedded quotes from corny American folk songs to popular tunes to Chopin. Another debut here is the sextet version of Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'A' Train," which Mingus had only recorded before with a big band. The differences, as one can imagine, are striking, particularly in Jordan's solo. The introduction of "Meditations" on the second disc of this set is simply shattering. Over half-an-hour in length, it offers once more the genius in Byard's playing and underscores Richmond as far more than a rhythmnatist, and Coles as a soloist who could hang with anybody. Of particular note is the interplay between Jordan and Dolphy's bass clarinet: the tune once more embodies the best of Mingus' thought and inspiration as it takes solid note of the lineage of the music and extends it into the future.

"So Long Eric" also appears here, since at the time of this recording, he was leaving the band, and this piece was a thanks for his contribution to Mingus' music and not the elegy it has been consistently thought of (Giddins points this out). Another welcome surprise here is the sextet performing a six-minute rendition of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" (St. Patrick's Day was the day before), kicked off by a jaunty, swinging intro by Byard and Mingus. As the melody becomes pronounced the horns all kick in in unison, and Coles takes a wonderful solo, swinging hard and lyrical with wonderful counterpoint by Mingus and timely fills and comping by Byard, as a jazz version of a reel played by Dolphy on clarinet can be heard in the background. The final surprise is the only known recording of Mingus playing Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz," with killer duo played between Dolphy on flute and Byard. Throughout, Mingus' bass urges them on, digging deep into the groove of the tune, and the dialogue between Mingus and Richmond is nearly telepathic. Despite all of these debuts, there is another very profound reason that this recording is so utterly special, which Giddins reveals near the beginning of his liner notes. There is a kind of exuberance and joy on this set that offers another side of the mercurial and stormy bandleader. Seldom has he sounded so at ease and relaxed as he does here. The confidence in the ensemble is complete, and he feels no need to push but only to encourage and tale delight in the proceedings. This short-lived group proves, as evidenced here, that they were a magical unit that may not have been around as long as Miles Davis' second quintet, or John Coltrane's quartet, but as under-celebrated as its various musicians were -- Coles, Richmond, and especially Byard -- the band itself was as innovative and creative even in the brevity of its existence. This double-disc is every bit as important as the Monk-Coltrane disc, and sounds very fine for a tape that has been sitting in a closet for over 40 years: it truly needs to be heard to even be believed, let alone convinced.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/cornell-1964-mw0000480163

///////

Reseña
por Thom Jurek
En 2005, Blue Note levantó las cejas (y las expectativas) del mundo del jazz al publicar el concierto inédito de Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane en el Carnegie Hall de noviembre de 1957, que literalmente sustituye a las pocas grabaciones del grupo tanto sonora como musicalmente. En 2007, por cortesía de la viuda de Charles Mingus, Sue, con la ayuda de Michael Cuscuna y Blue Note, nos ofrece otro trozo de historia del jazz hasta ahora desconocido con el concierto del Sexteto de Charles Mingus con Eric Dolphy en la Universidad de Cornell del 18 de marzo de 1964. La razón por la que este concierto es significativo es porque, aparentemente, no sólo nadie sabía que se había grabado, sino que, según Gary Giddins, que escribió los (típicos) excelentes forros aquí, ¡nadie más que la gente que organizó el espectáculo y los estudiantes que asistieron sabían que había tenido lugar! La otra razón de su importancia histórica es que tuvo lugar 17 días antes del famoso concierto del Town Hall y fue anterior a otros espectáculos europeos de la banda durante al menos un mes. Esto es significativo porque el trompetista Johnny Coles enfermó poco después y Dolphy falleció unos meses más tarde. Hasta ahora, el concierto del Town Hall era el estándar de esta banda, pero es seguro decir con esta revelación actual que será reemplazado en los anales del canon. Esta banda -Mingus, Dolphy, Coles, Jaki Byard, Dannie Richmond y Clifford Jordan- tocó versiones quizá definitivas de algunos temas de Mingus elaborados previamente en el Five Spot, donde reunió al grupo, y que se presume que fueron interpretados y grabados por primera vez en el Town Hall. Gran parte del material también se interpretó en la gira europea que siguió y que culminó con una aparición en el Festival de Jazz de Monterey.

Estos dos discos contienen una serie de debuts y algunos solos absolutamente sorprendentes, comenzando con el primer solo de Byard, "ATFW You", que son cuatro minutos y medio de genialidad e historia del jazz. Los solos de Mingus con el esquelético apoyo de Byard en "Sophisticated Lady" duran unos minutos más antes de que la banda se lance en serio con una estridente pero increíblemente juguetona versión de media hora de "Fables of Faubus", que deslumbra, por no decir otra cosa, en gran parte por el inspiradísimo toque de bajo del líder de la banda, y las citas incrustadas de cursis canciones folclóricas americanas, melodías populares y Chopin. Otro debut aquí es la versión para sexteto de "Take the 'A' Train" de Billy Strayhorn, que Mingus sólo había grabado antes con una big band. Las diferencias, como se puede imaginar, son notables, sobre todo en el solo de Jordan. La introducción de "Meditations" en el segundo disco de este conjunto es simplemente estremecedora. Con más de media hora de duración, ofrece una vez más la genialidad de Byard y subraya que Richmond es mucho más que un rítmico, y que Coles es un solista que puede estar a la altura de cualquiera. Cabe destacar la interacción entre Jordan y el clarinete bajo de Dolphy: la melodía encarna una vez más lo mejor del pensamiento y la inspiración de Mingus, ya que toma buena nota del linaje de la música y lo extiende hacia el futuro.

"So Long Eric" también aparece aquí, ya que en el momento de esta grabación, él estaba dejando la banda, y esta pieza era un agradecimiento por su contribución a la música de Mingus y no la elegía que se ha pensado sistemáticamente (Giddins señala esto). Otra grata sorpresa es que el sexteto interpreta una versión de seis minutos de "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" (el Día de San Patricio fue el día anterior), iniciada por una introducción alegre y oscilante de Byard y Mingus. A medida que la melodía se va pronunciando, las trompas entran al unísono, y Coles hace un maravilloso solo, con un swing fuerte y lírico, con el maravilloso contrapunto de Mingus y los oportunos rellenos y composiciones de Byard, mientras se oye de fondo una versión jazzística de un rollo tocado por Dolphy al clarinete. La sorpresa final es la única grabación conocida de Mingus tocando el "Jitterbug Waltz" de Fats Waller, con un dúo asesino entre Dolphy a la flauta y Byard. En todo momento, el bajo de Mingus les impulsa, profundizando en el ritmo de la melodía, y el diálogo entre Mingus y Richmond es casi telepático. A pesar de todos estos debuts, hay otra razón muy profunda por la que esta grabación es tan especial, que Giddins revela al principio de sus notas. Hay una especie de exuberancia y alegría en este conjunto que ofrece otra cara del mercurial y tormentoso director de orquesta. Pocas veces ha sonado tan a gusto y relajado como aquí. La confianza en el conjunto es total, y no siente la necesidad de presionar, sino sólo de animar y deleitarse con las actuaciones. Este grupo de corta vida demuestra, como se evidencia aquí, que era una unidad mágica que puede no haber estado tanto tiempo como el segundo quinteto de Miles Davis, o el cuarteto de John Coltrane, pero por muy poco celebrados que fueran sus diversos músicos - Coles, Richmond, y especialmente Byard - la banda en sí era tan innovadora y creativa incluso en la brevedad de su existencia. Este doble disco es tan importante como el de Monk-Coltrane, y suena muy bien para una cinta que ha estado guardada en un armario durante más de 40 años: realmente hay que escucharlo para creerlo, por no decir convencerlo.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/cornell-1964-mw0000480163

Charles Mingus • Debut Rarities, Vol.2

 

Review from AllMusic (by Scott Yanow):
These are early Mingus recordings that emphasize his talents as a bassist. Tracks one through nine match Mingus with pianist Spaulding Givens in a duo setting from 1951, while tracks 10-15 add the drums of Max Roach for trio performances from 1953. The music is tasteful chamber jazz featuring mostly standards plus some originals. Of greatest interest are the two versions of Jeepers Creepers and three interpretations of Gershwin material. Mingus already had a beautiful tone and would evolve greatly during the next decade.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/debut-rarities-vol-2-mw0000617314

///////

Reseña de AllMusic (por Scott Yanow):
Estas son grabaciones tempranas de Mingus que enfatizan sus talentos como bajista. Las pistas uno a nueve emparejan a Mingus con el pianista Spaulding Givens en un formato de dúo de 1951, mientras que las pistas 10-15 agregan la batería de Max Roach para interpretaciones en trío de 1953. La música es jazz de cámara de buen gusto con principalmente estándares más algunos originales. De mayor interés son las dos versiones de Jeepers Creepers y tres interpretaciones de material de Gershwin. Mingus ya tenía un tono hermoso y evolucionaría enormemente durante la próxima década.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/debut-rarities-vol-2-mw0000617314

www.charlesmingus.com ...

Mingus Big Band 93 • Nostalgia In Times Square

 

www.charlesmingus.com ...

Better Git It in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus

 

 

Charles Mingus is one of the most important—and most mythologized—composers and performers in jazz history. Classically trained and of mixed race, he was an outspoken innovator as well as a bandleader, composer, producer, and record-label owner. His vivid autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, has done much to shape the image of Mingus as something of a wild man: idiosyncratic musical genius with a penchant for skirt-chasing and violent outbursts. But, as the autobiography reveals, he was also a hopeless romantic. After exploring the most important events in Mingus’s life, Krin Gabbard takes a careful look at Mingus as a writer as well as a composer and musician. He digs into how and why Mingus chose to do so much self-analysis, how he worked to craft his racial identity in a world that saw him simply as “black,” and how his mental and physical health problems shaped his career. Gabbard sets aside the myth-making and convincingly argues that Charles Mingus created a unique language of emotions—and not just in music. Capturing many essential moments in jazz history anew, Better Git It in Your Soul will fascinate anyone who cares about jazz, African American history, and the artist’s life.

 

Krin Gabbard (Autor)  

 

Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus

  

Bass player extraordinaire Charles Mingus, who died in 1979, is one of the essential composers in the history of jazz, and Beneath the Underdog, his celebrated, wild, funny, demonic, anguished, shocking, and profoundly moving memoir, is the greatest autobiography ever written by a jazz musician.
 
It tells of his God-haunted childhood in Watts during the 1920s and 1930s; his outcast adolescent years; his apprenticeship, not only with jazzmen but also with pimps, hookers, junkies, and hoodlums; and his golden years in New York City with such legendary figures as Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.  Here is Mingus in his own words, from shabby roadhouses to fabulous estates, from the psychiatric wards of Bellevue to worlds of mysticism and solitude, but for all his travels never straying too far, always returning to music.
 
“This book is the purest of dynamite.  Like the autobiographies of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday and like A. B. Spellman's Four Lives in the Bebop Business, it says more about the American psyche in general and black survival in particular than the sociologists and psychologists ever can in their stiff, soulless vocabularies.... Somber, comic, disturbing, boastful, confessional, sentimental, contradictory, poetic, irascible, impish...lyrical, nasty, angelic, reflective...expressionistic, picaresque, jive...this is a powerful book.”— Rolling Stone

Charles Mingus • A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music & Poetry, 1957

 

Symposium of Music and Poetry Review by Scott Yanow
Despite its title, this album doesn't contain poetry, nor is it a "symposium." What it does have is a memorable narration by Lonnie Elder  on "Scenes in the City" (one of the best collaborations of spoken word and jazz). There are four obscure Charles Mingus compositions for his sextet (which consists of the bassist/leader, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, Shafi Hadi on tenor and alto, either Bill Hardman or Clarence Shaw on trumpet, pianist Horace Parlan, and drummer Dannie Richmond). There are also three previously unreleased performances, including a run-through of Dizzy Gillespie's "Wouldn't You." An excellent set of challenging yet often accessible music. 
https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-modern-jazz-symposium-of-music-and-poetry-mw0000175051

///////

Simposio de música y poesía Reseña de Scott Yanow
A pesar de su título, este álbum no contiene poesía, ni es un «simposio». Lo que sí tiene es una memorable narración de Lonnie Elder en «Scenes in the City» (una de las mejores colaboraciones entre la palabra hablada y el jazz). Hay cuatro composiciones poco conocidas de Charles Mingus para su sexteto (formado por el bajista y líder, el trombonista Jimmy Knepper, Shafi Hadi al saxo tenor y alto, Bill Hardman o Clarence Shaw a la trompeta, el pianista Horace Parlan y el baterista Dannie Richmond). También hay tres interpretaciones inéditas, entre ellas una versión de «Wouldn't You» de Dizzy Gillespie. Un excelente conjunto de música desafiante, pero a menudo accesible.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-modern-jazz-symposium-of-music-and-poetry-mw0000175051

 

Charles Mingus • Incarnations

 

Charles Mingus • Jazz Composers Workshop

 

Charles Mingus • Reincarnations

 

Further rare material from the Charles Mingus sessions for the Candid label in 1960 – work that initially gave the world his two famous albums for the company, both of which were easily some of the most revolutionary work he recorded up to that point in his career! The spirit of the tracks here is very similar – Mingus set free from the more confined modes of Columbia Records, and serving up long tracks that are filled with searing solos from a top-shelf array of young modernists – players who include Eric Dolphy on alto and flute, Jimmy Knepper on trombone, Ted Curson and Lonnie Hillyer on trumpets, Booker Ervin on tenor, and Tommy Flanagan on piano – sounding a lot more dynamic here than on his own recordings. The material here was all unissued at the time – and titles include "Melody From The Drums", "Vassarlean", "Body & Soul (take 2)", "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (take 4)", and "Reincarnation Of A Lovebird (first version – take 4)
https://www.dustygroove.com/item/193811/Charles-Mingus:Reincarnations

///////

Más material inédito de las sesiones de Charles Mingus para el sello Candid en 1960, un trabajo que inicialmente dio al mundo sus dos famosos álbumes para la compañía, ¡ambos fácilmente algunos de los trabajos más revolucionarios que había grabado hasta ese momento en su carrera! El espíritu de las pistas aquí es muy similar: Mingus se liberó de los modos más limitados de Columbia Records y nos ofrece largas pistas llenas de solos abrasadores de una selección de jóvenes modernistas de primer nivel, entre los que se encuentran Eric Dolphy al saxo alto y la flauta, Jimmy Knepper al trombón, Ted Curson y Lonnie Hillyer a la trompeta, Booker Ervin al saxo tenor y Tommy Flanagan al piano, que suenan mucho más dinámicos aquí que en sus propias grabaciones. El material aquí incluido no se había publicado en ese momento, y los títulos incluyen «Melody From The Drums», «Vassarlean», «Body & Soul (take 2)», «Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (take 4)» y «Reincarnation Of A Lovebird (primera versión – take 4)».
https://www.dustygroove.com/item/193811/Charles-Mingus:Reincarnations

Mingus Speaks

Charles Mingus is among jazz’s greatest composers and perhaps its most talented bass player. He was blunt and outspoken about the place of jazz in music history and American culture, about which performers were the real thing (or not), and much more. These in-depth interviews, conducted several years before Mingus died, capture the composer’s spirit and voice, revealing how he saw himself as composer and performer, how he viewed his peers and predecessors, how he created his extraordinary music, and how he looked at race. Augmented with interviews and commentary by ten close associates―including Mingus’s wife Sue, Teo Macero, George Wein, and Sy Johnson―Mingus Speaks provides a wealth of new perspectives on the musician’s life and career.

As a writer for Playboy, John F. Goodman reviewed Mingus’s comeback concert in 1972 and went on to achieve an intimacy with the composer that brings a relaxed and candid tone to the ensuing interviews. Much of what Mingus shares shows him in a new light: his personality, his passions and sense of humor, and his thoughts on music. The conversations are wide-ranging, shedding fresh light on important milestones in Mingus’s life such as the publication of his memoir, Beneath the Underdog, the famous Tijuana episodes, his relationships, and the jazz business.

 

 

John Goodman (Author), Sy Johnson (Photographer)  

Red Norvo Trio • Move !