Home » Jazz Articles » Charles Mingus
Jazz Articles about Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus: An Essential Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Charles Mingus was rarely a happy man and yet his music possessed a power to uplift listeners unlike that of most other composer / bandleaders before or after him. It still has that power in 2021, four decades after his passing and on the eve of his hundredth anniversary in 2022. In his personal life, too, Mingus was a mass of conflicts and contradictions. He was by turns depressed and exuberant, though mostly depressed. He could be violent one moment ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Mingus At Carnegie Hall (Deluxe Edition)
by Chris May
This 2-CD set takes the 1974 album Mingus At Carnegie Hall (Atlantic) and adds seventy minutes of previously unissued material recorded at the same concert. It is as worthwhile an addition to Charles Mingus' recorded legacy as 2020's previously unissued 2-CD set Charles Mingus @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 (Sunnyside). Why it has taken so long for either set to be released is anybody's guess. But at least we have them now. Mingus led many great bands ...
Continue ReadingA Quasi-Centennial Mingus Festivus: The Charles Mingus Songbook, Part 2
by Ludovico Granvassu
We continue our focus on the compositions of Charles Mingus, on the eve of what would have been his 99th birthday. Today's jazz would sound very different if Mingus had not been around and for this show we focus on his best renditions of his most beautiful compositions.PlaylistBen Allison Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Quincy Jones “Boogie Stop Shuffle" Big Band Bossa Nova (Verve) 0:16 Host talks 2:57 Gavino Murgia Blast 4tet “Pithecanthropus ...
Continue ReadingA Quasi-Centennial Mingus Festivus: The Charles Mingus Songbook, Part 1
by Ludovico Granvassu
Charles Mingus would have turned 99 years old on 22 April 2021. So with a year ahead of his centennial celebration we've decided to focus this edition of Mondo Jazz on Mingus as a composer, featuring some of the best renditions of his most memorable compositions.Happy listening!PlaylistBen Allison Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Maceo Parker “Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul" Roots Revisited (Minor) 0:16 Host talks 5:56 Osmiza “Fables of ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975
by Stefano Merighi
"In questo paese--sentenziò Charles Mingus--percepisco ancora intatto il puzzo delle camere a gas e dei campi di concentramento. Ma non fatevi troppi problemi: gli Stati Uniti d'America sono anch'essi un grande campo di concentramento." Il paese era la Germania Ovest, la città era Brema, l'anno il 1964. La dichiarazione è riportata da Joachim Ernst Berendt in un articolo del 1979 e ripresa come incipit dell'indimenticabile Charlie Mingus di Mario Luzzi (Lato Side, 1983) Dichiarazione ...
Continue ReadingMark Sullivan's Best Releases of 2020
by Mark Sullivan
Despite the circumstances, this was a high volume year for album releases, rich in both quantity and quality. Mine is not a ranked listing, but more or less in reverse chronological order. Since I wrote fewer album reviews than average, for the first time I have included several releases that I did not review myself. Nels Cline Share The Wealth Blue Note Records The expanded Nels Cline Singers: now a sextet with the ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975
by Mike Jurkovic
It is 1964 and the big bass emperor rules the old continent as he commanded every stage he set foot on. So @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 just does not sound right. Charles Mingus Swings Bad Ass and Liberates Your Body and Your Mind @ Bremen sounds way more like it. For—as much as anything in his grand, sweeping arc serves to highlight how mercurial and spot-on his real time genius was—this previously unreleased four-disc joy bomb will certainly be ...
Continue Reading
