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Mingus's Fingus
by Rob Mariani
On a chilly November night the fog from the River rolled up Hudson Street rubbing against the big plate glass window of the Half-Note Café on the corner of Spring. Inside, things were warm and busy. Charlie Mingus's sextet was setting up on the bandstand on top of the two-sided bar. People were finding their tables in the half-dark room. Al, the waiter with the smart-ass New York accent, was delivering drinks and wise cracks to the regulars. ...
Continue ReadingMingus Among Us: Music Written for Monterey 1965 Not Heard...; Live in Tokyo: At the Blue Note
by George Kanzler
Charles Mingus Music Written for Monterey 1965 Not Heard... Sue Mingus Music-Sunnyside 2006 Mingus Big Band Live in Tokyo: At the Blue Note Sue Mingus Music-Sunnyside 2006
Ghost bands play the music of a band whose leader is deceased, carrying it on as played when that leader was in charge. So ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: At UCLA
by Samuel Chell
Charles Mingus At UCLA Sunnyside Records 2006
The actual title of this CD is Charles Mingus: Music Written for Monterey, 1965. Not heard...played in its entirety at UCLA. Vols. 1 and 2. The apparent overkill of the title prepares us for more of the same in the accompanying booklet, which contains three essays written for the present release along with some illegible artifacts provided by Mingus himself--the original liner notes, a sample of his ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Thrice Upon a Theme
by Kurt Gottschalk
In 1956, bassist, bandleader and composer Charles Mingus began an ascent that would carry him at least until the Town Hall debacle of 1962. The explosion of energy, passion and fury that he would exhibit over those six years could barely be predicted from the dozen or so records he'd already released--good records, but tame compared to the drive of Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959) or the free roll of Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid, 1960). ...
Continue ReadingThinking Mingus
by Bill Siegel
“But jazz is decadent bourgeois music," I was told, for that is what the Soviet press had hammered into Russian heads. “It's my music," I said, “and I wouldn't give up jazz for a world revolution." ~ Langston Hughes
“No matter what LeRoi Jones says to the contrary, the essence of this music, this 'way of making music', is not simply protest. Its essence is something far more elemental: an elan vital, a forceful vitality, an explosive creative ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Live at Montreux 1975
by Jim Santella
Charles Mingus Live at Montreux 1975 Eagle Vision 2004
With complete liner notes and credits, this concert performance makes a valuable addition to the DVD library. That it's vintage Mingus in top form makes things all the better.
As this is a live performance, the sound isn't always perfect. George Adams, for example swings away from the microphone quite often, leaving a trail of notes behind. At other times, the ...
Continue ReadingA Mingus Among Us
by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
If you were to sit down and make a list of jazz's greatest bassists/composers/bandleaders of all time, you wouldn't get very far at all because it is almost time for dinner and you still have this article to read yet. But as short as that list would be, it would certainly include Charles Mingus. In fact, with the criteria I've given you, it is possible that Charles Mingus would be the only name on the list. Had I widened the ...
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