Charles Mingus

[cabinessence]

One of my very favorite artists ever, period. It bugs me that whenever I try and recommend him to younger friends who've heard of him but never actually heard him, they smilingly, patronizingly try and sweep him into some anachronistic 'beatnik jazz nerd-fanatic's' bag: "Dig your contrapuntal bass, Charley!", and the like. Arggh!

Could any of you help enlighten these poor fools why any person with ears to hear should be tuning in to listen???

For me, he's the totality of what music appreciation, making it and digging it in the audience is about, as full blown a California dreamer and visionary as Brian Wilson. I can make a case for him later, but I'm tired of being the prophet in the wilderness on this subject. Some wider appreciation here would be very welcome.

[analogdemon]

My opinion of Charles Minugs...

Mingus is without a doubt one of the most prolific composers in the history of jazz.  His music is complex, beautiful, and absolutely timeless.  His albums "The Clown" (1957) and "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" (1963) are quite possibly the two single greatest albums ever in jazz, better than Miles' "Kind of Blue", better than John Coltrane's "Love Supreme".

That said, I will say that I don't feel that Mingus' music is as "accessible" to people with just a passing interest in jazz.  The only albums I'd recommend for casual fans of jazz would be "Mingus Ah Um" or "Five Mingus" (a.k.a. "Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus").  For anyone whose interest in jazz goes beyond scratching the surface though, Mingus' masterpieces are required listening.

Great thread!  Let's hear the love for the man who made 56 whales beach themselves in Mexico the day he died, at age 56, in Mexico!

[no]

Without question, my favorite firgure in Jazz. I'd like to get around to reading one of his biographies soon.

[analogdemon]

Okay, the Smiley Smile community should officially be ashamed of themselves.  What's wrong with you people?!  This thread should be 10 pages long by now!!! 

[Jason]

I dig Mingus but don't know enough about him to engage in serious discussion.

[Bean Bag]

[analogdemon]

That is an absolutely awesome picture of Mingus.  Thanks for posting it!

[cabinessence]

That's him! Thanks from me too

Here's his official site: http://www.mingusmingusmingus.com

The home page has a video loop of him soloing  at length you should check out, but you might want to skip over to the 44 little audio samples here:

http://www.mingusmingusmingus.com/Film/audio.html

I'm not sure how much these excerpts will convey except a whole lot of variety from Duke Ellingtonian swing through bop and way, way beyond.

I'm no expert but I really love his long form pieces which unreel like soul movies, not just soundtracks but scenarios and actors , camera angles and editing too.

Like "Pithecanthropus Erectus" (he always had the best titles). It pretty exactly anticipates the Kubrick 2001 dawn of civilization preamble, but is funnier and more ominous at the same time; also has the most insidious launching and returning motif the whole thing keeps pivoting off of) I'm lazy right now, so I'll only toss out further key pieces to check out someday: Ecclusiastics (about that old time religion), Haitian Fight Song (rumble music),   Jelly Roll (a fantasia on Mister Morton and the bordellos he played in), Self Portrait in Three Colors (what the guy in that picture sounds like as he's reflecting on himself: it also seems to be a distant descendant of a really beautiful song he wrote when just a teen called God's Portrait),  signature tune Goodbye Porkpie Hat, the unlike anything else ever writ Cumbia Jazz Fusion, Eat that Chicken (the George Clintonesque side of the man, a major component of his appeal, a bigger than life mad humor and humorous madness/sheer anger) He's as eloquent and true verbally as musically. Read his totally idiosyncratic autobiography   Beneath the Underdog which starts this way:

"In other words I am three. One man stands forever in the middle, unconcerned, unmoved, watching, waiting to be allowed to express what he sees to the other two.
The second man is like a frightened animal that attacks for fear of being attacked.
Then there's an over-loving gentle person who lets people into the uttermost sacred temple of his being and he'll take insults and be trusting and sign contracts without reading them and get talked down to working cheap or for nothing, and when he realizes what's been done to him he feels like killing and destroying everything around him including himself for being so stupid. But he can't - he goes back inside himself.
Which one is real?
They're all real."

And as a start you might try and find the excellent  Thirteen Pictures: The Charles Mingus Anthology, that's what got me started.

[pavlos brenos]

"Fables Of Faubus" is one of  the all-time Mingus classics......................
Found some archived FM broadcasts that looks like it would be worth exploring through.................
http://www.wuot.org/h/programming/improv0804.html

[theeponymuseudonym]

Turn me On dead Man...turn mE ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mikee]

A couple of lesser known Mingus albums that I like are the early (1957) 'East Coasting' and the late (1971) 'Let My Children Hear Music'.
'East Coasting' features the great Bill Evans on piano.  It is quite adventurous and I think it has a little more space than a typical Mingus album.
'Let My Children hear Music'  is a high quality worthy effort that hasn't gotten a lot of attention over the years.  I'm not saying  that these are first buys if you are just starting out with Mingus.  However  if you like Mingus, and have his well known classic albums, I think you will enjoy these 2.
 

[cabinessence]

I'll check those out!

A more famous one I'd like to know more about apart from the very few cuts and tiny samples I've heard is the showdown between Mingus, Max Roach and Duke Ellington from the early sixties. It sounds like the best kind of tribute to Ellington, as in lighting a fire under his ass by both junior participants,  forcing and challenging the thin, brown, Duke to play for his  everlasting life !

Does that check out with the LP MONEY JUNGLE as a whole or am I getting up my hopes unrealistically?

[Don't Back Down]

We've been getting new charts in jazz band this week and one of todays was "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and "Boogie Stop Shuffle" by Charles. A nice sweet ballad tune. I need to expand my jazz collection

[mark goddard]

I love East Coasting and think that this could be given to newbies to start with. Also what i love about Mingus is drummer Dannie Richmond.....i don't think anyone mentioned him on the drummers thread a while back.

search out "Triumph of the underdog" on dvd.....a must see!!

[jazzfascist]

Yeah “Mingus Ah Um” and “Black Saint and The Sinner Lady” are certified masterpieces, I also like “Changes One-Two”and “Pithecantrophus Erectus”. Don’t know if he was better than Miles and Coltrane, he just had a different approach. Where they played “modern” abstract jazz, Mingus seemed to want to incorporate all elements of jazz, going from the early burlesque kind of jazz to Ellingtons more sophisticated jazz. I think you can hear a lot of Ellington in his music, if you compare for instance “Prelude To A Kiss”, with some of Mingus’ charts, the resemblance is uncanny. Maybe he was a kind of punky version of Ellington, at any rate he seemed to want to pick up the torch from Ellington and carry it further. I think he also he has inspired a lot of people in later forms of  jazz, if you listen to for instance Carla Bley and Charlie Hadens Liberation Orchestra, I think they have taken quite a lot of stuff from Mingus.

Søren

[analogdemon]

I just got done listening to "The Clown" again.  For any Mingus fans who have never heard this, GET IT!  This is absolutely one of his masterpieces.  The music on here, in retrospect, shows the early roots of where Mingus would go with his music later in his career.  The original album contained only four tracks, but all the CD releases contain bonus stuff at the end.

The first and last tracks on the album are worthy of special note here.  The album opener called "Hatian Fight Song" is a very early, more raw version of what would become "II B.S." on the "Five Mingus" album.  The album closer, the title track, has an awesome narration that was improvised by Jean Shepherd (the same guy who narrated "A Christmas Story").  The way the musicians play off his improv is fantastic.

This website: http://www.flicklives.com/Records/Clown/the_clown.htm has a bit on "The Clown" in Mingus' own words.

This is one of Mingus' lesser known albums (compared to Ah Um, Tijuana Moods, PE, TBSATSL, etc.) but it has always gotten respect from critics.  All Music Guide gives it five stars, and I've read plenty of other critics and listeners who hail this record as a triumph.  Highly recommended.

[Boxer Monkey]

Mingus is just about my favorite jazz guy. I think he's probably as accessible to casual jazz fans as anybody and maybe more so. There's something deeply bluesy about him that broadens his appeal to me. You can really hear it on "Oh Yeah" -- Mingus doesn't play bass but sings and it's earthy and real. "Blues and Roots" is another great one in this vein. Mingus' bass solo on "Tensions" kicks my ass every time.

As far as his arrangements for bigger bands go, I like "Black Saint" but it tends to get a bit tedious for me about halfway through; I prefer "Mingus Dynasty." Kind of feel like "Ah-um" is a bit overrated but maybe because it's the omnipresent Mingus album.

[no]

"Mingus Dynasty" is forever under a rug.  I like it for it's nastiness, though I do still prefer "Ah-Um;"  I would've probably never heard it had it not been in a Pawn Shop for $2.

[mikee]

I'd like to know more about apart from the very few cuts and tiny samples I've heard is the showdown between Mingus, Max Roach and Duke Ellington from the early sixties. It sounds like the best kind of tribute to Ellington, as in lighting a fire under his ass by both junior participants,  forcing and challenging the thin, brown, Duke to play for his  everlasting life !

Actually Duke was just as capable of "lighting fires under asses", senority not withstanding, as Roach will tell you if you ask him.  There is a reason they called him  Duke.  I love that album.  It is not a showdown really (as some of the blowing session albums were to a degree) it is pretty cutting edge.  Ellington was perfectly capable at playing modern which he did often enough.    'Money Jungle'  is a great album (great title too!) as for that matter is 'Ellington and Coltrane' from about 1963.

   

[cabinessence]

Thanks for the clarification-recommendation for 'Money Jungle'. All hail the Duke, maybe the greatest of them all. 

I put it that way as to lighting fires because Ellington got mixed up in a lot of only semi-inspired sessions in the latter part of his career, whereas on this one (from what I've heard) he's totally engaged, the himself I like best entirely...whoever's to be credited.

[jazzfascist]

Yeah, Duke Ellington probably more than anyone expanded the notion of what jazz could be, and stuff that would later become mainstream he dabbled with early on, for instance "Cotton Tail" sounds like a precursor to bebop. I also heard a piano piece with him, and I think Billy Strayhorn, called "Tonk", which sounds like Gershwin and Satie playing stride piano, very modern. I think he was so advanced in his ideas of music, that he could play with musicians much younger than himself if he wanted to. Some of his early stuff like "The Mooche" sounds like some of the program music Brian tried to do on "Smile". "Jungle Nights In Harlem" is also great.
It's no secret that Mingus admired him very much and I think when you hear his music, Ellingtons influence is very evident, besides the arrangements, a lot of his soloists also have the same robust sound, that would be in Ellingtons bands.
I also think that musicians like Monk and Sonny Rollins have a little of the same burlesque/barogue approach that Mingus has, particularly Monk, "Free Cell Block F, 'Tis Nazi USA" from "Changes Two" sounds very Monkish.

Søren

[cabinessence]

and don't forget the tribute "Jump Monk"

Great post, Soren