Occasionally, Rifftides reposts something from the past that still has relevance. Charles Mingus is relevant.
From August 24, 2007
2007 is turning out to be a bonanza year for a Charles Mingus sextet that existed for a few months forty-three years ago. All of the band’s members are dead. Its music is gloriously alive. The high point so far is a remarkable two-CD set capturing a performance that might have been forgotten except for a lucky discovery. On a neglected shelf, Sue Mingus, indefatigable preserver of her husband’s legacy, found tapes of a concert the sextet played at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in March of 1964. Blue Note has released the music as Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy: Cornell 1964.
With the promethean bassist were pianist Jaki Byard, saxophonists Eric Dolphy and Clifford Jordan, trumpeter Johnny Coles and drummer Dannie Richmond. They were red-hot and full of joy at the Cornell engagement, which took place nearly a month earlier than the Town Hall concert that launched the band’s celebrated European tour. Fresh from eight weeks at the Five Spot Café in Mahattan, Mingus had whipped the sextet and its repertoire into shape, achieving a combination of togetherness and abandon that can result only from long, steady work on the bandstand. This is a further reminder that the restrictive 21st century economy of the music business robs jazz of opportunities for creative development. When is the last time a major jazz group had a two-months’ run in a club?
If Mingus rose to towering rages, he also reached the sustained joy achievable only by musicians of the highest rank. It is a fact that all the musicians he abused, all those he screamed at and humiliated in public — even those he assaulted — forgave him, worked with again, and in most cases gave him credit for their development.
His ups could generate glory, and that’s what we get in the Cornell concert. Mingus and the band are happy, even giddy. Their virtuosity is wrapped in good feelings. Exuding raw energy in his bass work, Mingus is the coach and cheerleader urging everyone on.
“Stride it now, baby, take it back a few years, uh huh,” Mingus mutters to Byard during the pianist’s second solo chorus on “Take the ‘A’ Train.” His urging is additional fuel for the stride and boogie woogie fire that Byard builds before he slides into bebop time. Clifford Jordan follows with five hallelujah choruses levitated by Ellingtonian unison puncuations from Dolphy and Coles. Dolphy delivers one of his patented bass clarinet solos, full of wild interval leaps, inflected with speech patterns and intimations of birdsong. Coles, a great trumpeter who never got his due, begins the round of “‘A’ Train” solos reflective and thoughtful, with a touch of irony in his quotes. The performance includes a bass-drums conversation between Mingus and Richmond, as remarkable for its hilarity as for its intensity. In the midst of it, one of them exclaims, “Ya-hoo,” an emblem of the elation this track–indeed, the entire concert–generates. Byard’s swirl of solo piano on “ATFW You,” a tribute to Art Tatum and Fats Waller, opens the concert and sets the tone of exuberance.
The state of grace remains throughout the CDs, even in half-hour versions of “Fables of Faubus” and “Meditations,” Mingus compositions that arose out of his frustration and anger over political and social conditions in America. He performed “Meditations” with the sextet at Town Hall, then almost nightly during the month-long tour of Europe in April of ’64, and later that year with different personnel at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco and at the Monterey Jazz Festival. It was recorded on several of those occasions, but I have never been more moved by its solemnity and power than in this concert debut. The other premiere at Cornell was “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” a piano piece that Mingus refined for the sextet during the Five Spot gig. As for “Faubus,” the racist Arkansas governor inspires ridicule and good-natured derision rather than anger in this performance loaded with punning quotes that include Mingus’s allusion to “Pick Yourself Up” and Byard’s whimsy in a series of variations on “Yankee Doodle.”
Mingus wrote the blues “So Long Eric” to wish Dolphy godspeed. Dolphy was to leave the group following the European tour. He and the others could not have known that in three months their astonishingly gifted colleague would be dead at thirty-six of a heart attack brought on by diabetes. Dolphy’s mercurial flute work is the centerpiece of “Jitterbug Waltz.” Mingus features Coles as “Johnny O’Coles, the only Irishman in the band” in a fast ¾ version of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” The news that he is going to play that unlikely tune and be the only soloist seems to come as a surprise to Coles. He scuffles a bit at the beginning, but by the end solves the piece’s Gaelic mysteries in a powerful chorus. It’s all great fun. And great music.
Rifftides reader Don Frese writes that he had the good fortune to hear the band live:
God, I was so lucky to see this group once at the 5 Spot just before the tour. It was a wonder the joint was still standing after, the performances were so intense. The second set was Parkeriana, the pastiche of Dizzy’s “Ow” and other tunes associated with Charlie Parker, and the last set was “Meditations.” I was in tears at the end.
Mingus Observed
Mr. Frese also provided a link to a video clip of the sextet rehearsing a portion of “Meditations” in Stockholm during the tour. To see and hear it, click here.
Mingus The Icon
Ten days from now, the Jazz Icons series of DVDs will release a new set of seven discs including the Mingus sextet videotaped during the ’64 tour of Scandinavia. Other DVDs in the release feature John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Dexter Gordon and Wes Montgomery.
Mingus’s Basses
Shortly after The New York Times article in late July about the widows of Charles Mingus and Art Pepper, Nigel Faigan, a Rifftides reader in New Zealand, wrote on the Jazz West Coast listserve:
I was interested to read about Susan Mingus and unreleased tapes. BUT I was dismayed to read that Mingus’s Bass is leaning in a corner of the apartment. CM owned a beautiful French bass – if that is sitting unplayed for all those years, it may be suffering. Could someone find out whether the bass is being played. Like any instrument, it will suffer from disuse.
The Rifftides staff asked Sue Graham Mingus. This is her reply:
Charles’s lion’s head bass is being played by Boris Kozlov, and has been for the past six or seven years. One bass was given to Red Callender and another to Aladar Pege, the Hungarian bassist. The only other bass here is the one whose right shoulder was cut off and reversed by a master Italian bass repairman who lived down the block from Charles’ studio on East 5th Street in the late Sixties and who accomplished this feat over a period of six months. Charles came up with this astonishing idea in order to facilitate bowing — this was his “bowing bass.”
–Sue Mingus
A Mingus Book
Further reading: Tonight at Noon, Sue Mingus’s absorbing account of her life with Charles.
Now for that  (+) promised in the headline. This is the Mingus sextet on the 1964 tour in Europe. He introduces the piece, then tends to a bit of stage business before they play it. Be patient while Mingus mumbles the intro, then adjusts his bass peg.
Charles Mingus, 1922-1979
When he was a member of the Ray Charles band in the 1950s, saxophonist David “Fathead†Newman was frequently the featured soloist on Paul Mitchell’s and George V. Johnson’s “Hard Times.†It became a musical signature that Newman made indelibly his own. He featured the piece for the rest of his life. In this case, he played it with an all-star group assembled for a festival in New Jersey in—we think—1993. The other members of the band are Steve Nelson, vibraphone; Walter Bishop, Jr., piano; David Wiliams, bass; and Eddie Gladden drums.
John Goldsby and the young veteran German pianist Ranier Böhm. Strassmayer has absorbed, internalized and personalized what John Coltrane gave to jazz and often evokes him purely on the power of her tone and inflection. The subtlety of Mondlak’s drumming is epitomized in his unaccompanied feature “Cascades.†Pauses and silences are among the attributes of that four-minute work of the imagination, made all the more effective by Mondlak’s upwellings of contrasting intensity. Strassmayer’s closing duet with Böhm, “Still In Her Ears,†is notable for her emotional range and the purity of her flute sound.
Pianist Vijay Iyer’s new collaboration with the ceaselessly adventurous trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith stems from the closeness they developed when Iyer was a member of Smith’s Golden Quartet late in the late 1990s. In his notes, Iyer calls Smith his “hero, friend and teacher.†The centerpiece of their album of duets is the album’s title suite, seven movements in which the fluency of Iyer’s playing often contrasts with Smith’s pointillism, split tones and abstract musings. And yet, for all of the metaphysics of his approach, the trumpeter now and then smoothes out into the held tones of a balladist. That aspect is striking in the section called “Notes on water,†with electronic keyboard background from Iyer that is both supportive and ethereal. The album begins with Iyer’s “Passage.†It closes with Smith’s “Marian Anderson,†both imbued with power that grows out of quietness. Close listening to this music is a must. Frequent listening discloses depths and surprises.
dominant role in placing Sweden second only to the United States as a force in the evolution of modern jazz. This pair of four-CD box sets contains substantial amounts of the music that Gullin recorded from 1951 to 1960 when he and Swedish jazz were flourishing. They contain his collaborations with countrymen like pianist Bengt Hallberg, 
alto saxophonist Arne Domnérus, trombonist Åke Persson, trumpeters Jan Allan and Rolf Ericson and clarinetist Putte Wickmann. There are also celebrated encounters with visiting Americans Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims, Conte Candoli and Frank Rosolino. Throughout, the smoothness, swing and harmonic inventiveness in Gullin’s playing demonstrate what made him a perennial poll winner on both sides of the Atlantic. These volumes provide a fair picture of the state of Swedish jazz during one of its yeastiest periods. Ray Comiskey’s comprehensive liner notes are a bonus. 
With young Kansas Citians Dominique Sanders (bass) and Brian Steever (drums) in his trio, the prolific Italian pianist follows up his 2015 Emigmatix. Magris decorates his improvisations with keyboard runs and swirls that enhance excitement without putting a hitch in his solid bebop approach. The compositions are primarily by Magris. Highlights include “Out There Somewhere†and “What Love,†which is nearly ten minutes of exhilarating soloing and interaction on famous Cole Porter harmonic changes. The trio invests the late Don Pullen’s “Joycie Girl†with insistent bounce. Magris plays beautifully on Billy Eckstine’s “I Want To Talk About You,†but a guest female vocalist has problems with the song’s low notes. A different vocalist sings two other songs without range difficulties but is saddled with mundane lyrics. Perhaps as a service to listeners who don’t get the message from the music, two narrators in a final “Audio Notebook†promote the goal of the album’s title.
explains that he writes music not to label it “about something†in order to snag foundation grants, but to employ what he’s learned and make it work for him and his players. Interview Music does that. Even better, it works for the listener. Carey’s influences reflect not only his extensive academic study but also include a long list of composers from before Bach to Stravinsky, Ellington, Mingus, Hindemith, Gil Evans, Clare Fischer and Maria Schneider. His sextet plays the five-part suite with drive, wit, swing and a palpable unity of purpose. It is complex chamber music with solo space for Carey, long an impressive trumpeter; bass clarinetist Sheldon Brown; alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen; pianist Adam Shulman; bassist Fred Randolph; and drummer Jon Arkin. They are among the cream of the Bay Area’s jazz community. In a victory for his creative policy, the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music supported Interview Music with a grant despite its not being “about something,†which, of course, it is. It’s about music.
Joe Temperley is dead at 86. In recent years, he was a mainstay of the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra. In the 1970s following the death of Harry Carney, his glorious baritone saxophone sound anchored the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Temperley was born on September 20, 1929 in Crowdenbeath, Scotland and moved to New York in 1965. Also a master of the bass clarinet, he worked with the big bands of Woody Herman, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Clark Terry, Duke Pearson, Charles Mingus, and with a score of all-star groups.
Bing Crosby introduced “Love Thy Neighbor†in a scene with Ethel Merman and Leon Errol when Crosby co-starred with Carol Lombard (both pictured left) in the 1934 motion picture We’re Not Dressing. Crosby followed up with a hit record of the song for Brunswick. The record was on the charts for weeks and on the radio and jukeboxes for years. It seems unlikely that John Coltrane (born in 1926) would have missed hearing it in an era when radio was omnipresent in American lives. By the time his family moved from North Carolina to Philadelphia in 1944, Coltrane had been a saxophonist for about three years.
Neighborâ€â€”rarely used for jazz improvisation. In addition, as the scholar Carl Woideck has pointed out, Coltrane and pianist Red Garland recorded so often for Prestige that to assure variety, they maintained a constant lookout for unusual material. Coltrane’ solo on the song has plenty of variety, and a few hints at stylistic changes he was germinating that would flower a year or two later. It is one of his happiest solos of the 1950s. Coltrane with Garland, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and flugelhornist Wilbur Harden on July 11, 1958.
demands close attention. At the piano, the clarity of Bley’s musical intelligence intertwines with Andy Sheppard’s saxophone mastery and Steve Swallow’s transformation of what he recently called “this rock and roll instrument‗his electric bass guitar—into a medium of unprecedented subtlety. 
with perhaps every technical expert, supervisor and engineer of a major printer manufacturer— several of them many times. What started as the simple warranty replacement of a defective printer morphed into full-scale frustration when the replacement model also failed. Frustration did not escalate to the degree illustrated at the left, except in my interior. Two days apart, I express-shipped back to the manufacturer the original printer and the replacement. Finally, after days, a second replacement arrived. It worked perfectly.
technical experts of a hardware manufacturer have consumed hours that would have been better spent listening, writing and posting. I hope to have good news from the techies tomorrow. In the meantime, the Rifftides staff is reaching into the backlog of recordings and videos that we keep on hand for times like this.
leader Bill Holman is working as much as he cares to, which seems to be a lot. In recent years, Holman has frequently led bands in the US and Europe in works of his that are universally considered classics. Last weekend, the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master (class of 2010) flew north from
Live In Seattle was recorded in a former church on International Jazz Day almost exactly a year ago. Frequent collaborators, pianist Shipp and bassist Bisio give intriguing duo performances of five Shipp compositions and three standards. Shipp pays obeisance to the melody and chords of Rogers & Hart’s “My Funny Valentine†during its first chorus while Bisio, using his bow with speed and vigor, invents eerie countermelodies. As the storm subsides, there is a momentary pause before they launch into “New Fact,†a Shipp D-minor fantasy. The Roberta Flack hit “Where Is The Love?†gets Bisio’s wild bowing treatment while Shipp plays straight-time eighth notes, then the two become downright lyrical—briefly—and morph into “Psychic Counterpart,†with Bisio pizzicato in traditional time-keeping swing—for a while. “Green Dolphin Street“ appears in a game of melodic hide-and-seek, but Shipp’s chords leave little doubt about what they’re playing, and Bisio’s steady ostinato offsets Shipp’s peregrenations.
Guaraldi’s greatest recordings for the label. They are all there; the Charlie Brown Christmas pieces, so familiar to generations of TV kids; “Great Pumpkin Waltzâ€; “Cast Your Fate To The Winds,†“Samba de Orfeu†and the other definitive bossa nova pieces; Guaraldi’s beautiful religious composition “Hymn To Grace;†“Calling Dr. Funk,†the early triumph that circulated his nickname; and a couple of dozen others.
In January, Rifftides reader Donna Shore sent a remembrance of Bryce Rohde, the pianist and music director of the Australian Jazz Quartet. Outside of Australia the talented musician’s achievements received too little notice when he died in January. Updated slightly, here is Ms. Shore’s tribute, with video of Rohde’s trio performing the piece that she mentions. The video’s opening includes a biographical sketch. The low-level hum at the beginning quickly disappears.