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YEAR IN REVIEW December 30, 2020

Mark Sullivan's Best Releases of 2020

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 ...

ALBUM REVIEW December 8, 2020

Charles 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 ...

ALBUM REVIEW November 13, 2020

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, ...

RADIO August 9, 2020

David 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 ...

RADIO January 28, 2020

Charles 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 ...

RADIO August 20, 2019

The 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 ...

ALBUM REVIEW November 22, 2018

Charles 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 ...