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Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975
by Chris May
Four hours of previously unissued, premier-league music by Charles Mingus is something to shout about, and @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 is about as good as the bassist and composer's posthumously released live albums get. Four CDs chronicle two extended, intense performances recorded in Germany by Radio Bremen. Both gigs featured all-star bands and both are typically and gloriously uplifting Mingus melanges of through-composition and in-the-moment improvisation touching on blues and roots, bop, hard bop, New Orleans marching band, swing, ...
Continue ReadingDavid Billingsley, Charles Mingus, Bobby Watson and more
by Joe Dimino
This week we profile a lot of jazz musicians that we interviewed during the pandemic. We begin with Minneapolis pianist David Billingsley with a song off his new debut CD Hymns from Grandma's Living Room. We also feature Henry Robinett, Gary Smulyan and DreamRoot. Finally, we profile a new track off Bobby Watson's latest album Keepin' It Real. Enjoy. Playlist David Billingsley “Amazing Grace" Hymns from Grandma's Living Room (Intersound) 00:00 Host talks 5:00 Hank Jones and Frank ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus in the 1960s (1959 - 1963)
by Russell Perry
Charles Mingus completed the 1950s with an astonishing series of releases in 1959 -Blues and Roots, followed by Mingus Ah Um and finally, Mingus Dynasty. He kept up this pace for several years culminating in 1963 with Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and his masterwork, The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady. We have some live recordings from 1964 and 1965, but otherwise he went silent for the rest of the decade. The early 1960s recordings of Charles Mingus with ...
Continue ReadingThe Experimentalists – Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane (1956 - 1959)
by Russell Perry
In his book “Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965," David Rosenthal outlines a group of musicians within the hard bop idiom that he identifies as “experimentalists," describing them as ..."consciously trying to expand jazz's structural and technical boundaries: for instance, pianist Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane prior to his 1965 record Ascension. This category would also include Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, whose playing and compositions were at once experimental and reminiscent of the moods and forms ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Jazz In Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden
by Karl Ackermann
With previously unreleased material from Dexter Gordon, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and now, Charles Mingus, it may feel in 2018 like we are living fifty years in the past. Jazz In Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden captures a short-lived quintet that--given time--could have been Mingus' best. Drummer Roy Brooks and trumpeter Joe Gardner had been touring Europe with the bassist and returned to play a radio broadcast on WDET in Detroit in 1973. Their host was a ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Jazz In Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden
by Chris May
Summer 2018 saw the general release of privately held recordings by two giants of twentieth century jazz. First up was John Coltrane's Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!). It was followed by Thelonious Monk's Mønk (Gearbox). In autumn 2018, recordings by another totemic figure, Charles Mingus, become the year's third newly revealed archaeological discovery. The release of the Coltrane album was hyped as an event akin to the excavation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ...
Continue ReadingSpring 2018
by Doug Collette
Jazz Journal is a regular column consisting of pithy takes on recent jazz releases of note as well as spotlights on those titles in the genre that might otherwise go unnoticed under the cultural radar. Charles Mingus Live at Montreux 1975 Eagle Records 2018 Right from the opening notes of Charlies Mingus' jaunty insistent bass, Live at Montreaux 1975 captures the idiosyncratic jazz icon's personality to a T. Challenging charts for the ...
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