Unissued Mingus

[kh1958]

"We put out four albums, and I leased three of them to Fantasy, which I now have back, and this fourth has never been out on CD. So that might be the next CD I would put out. I also have the others, and I have unissued Mingus material that has never seen the light of day: [additional material from] the other albums that he put out, like My Favorite Quintet, that was recorded at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater, and Mingus at Town Hall—not the famous Town Hall where he tried to perform “Epitaph.” Same title, but a different concert. We have part two of the Tyrone Guthrie and part two of the Town Hall, which have never been out. And an extraordinary concert that was done at Cornell University before the famous 1964 tour in Europe, with the same personnel, with Eric Dolphy and Johnny Coles. Johnny Coles only lasted, I think, for one of the concerts on the tour, because he took ill and was hospitalized. So this was one of the great concerts; everyone was happy, the music was just outstanding. And that’s in the can, that’s something that eventually I would put out. Also, Charles Live at Ronnie Scott’s. We had the Mingus Big Band at Ronnie Scott’s from last year that I may put out … but in 1972, Mingus was recorded by Columbia Records with their mobile trucks at Ronnie Scott’s. It was the year—from the point of view of many of us, a scandalous year—that Columbia dropped all their jazz musicians except Miles Davis. And Charles was one that they dropped, and I think they felt so bad about it that they gave us the tapes that they had just recorded live at Ronnie Scott’s. So these are some of the ideas of material that we will be issuing. In other words, both Mingus performances and repertory carrying on, like the Orchestra—Nat Hentoff said he’d like to hear a whole album of just the Orchestra."

[jazzbo]

It's not a good idea to start holding one's breath NOW!

[king ubu]

How about first making the Fantasy albums readily available? (Those are the Jazz Workshop LPs, I assume? Monterey, and Music Written for...?)

I have "Monterey" on LP, but have never heard the other set. Seems to be some of the best Mingus, so... what is she waiting for?

[John B]

so... what is she waiting for?

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"So now I will continue my fight on a grander scale. Jazz Workshop Inc, the publisher of Charles Mingus' legacy of composition, will reissue, legitimately, the best stolen Mingus material on hand. We will press the very material released illegally by others, do it better and sell it back again-- with comprehensive notes, authentic photographs, historical data, cheaper rates. We will undersell the pirates and put them out of business. That is our plan.

Joel Dorn heard my story and now we are armed: Revenge Records! Anyone in possession of pirated Mingus CD's, please contact us at the address below. The presses are waiting.

Sue Mingus"

9 years later and still no second release on Revenge Records.....

[sidewinder]

I have an original LP copy of the 'Music Written For...' 2LP set. When I spoke with Fred Cohen of the Jazz Record Center a few weeks ago he confirmed that Mingus only produced 300 copies of this. The music is great and it needs to be out on CD. Fred did a limited LP reissue of this with Sue Mingus which he sells at the JRC - taken from a mint LP original I think as the master tapes were disposed of by Capitol.

[kh1958]

I think you can still get the Mingus Brass Band record (the reissued LP) from the Jazz Record Center in New York.

[sidewinder]

I think you can still get the Mingus Brass Band record (the reissued LP) from the Jazz Record Center in New York.

←

Its about $40 I think.

[brownie]

Been waiting for more than three decades for volume 2 of the Town Hall Concert

Getting all the vinyls from the Charles Mingus label when they came out was one of the few very bright ideas I ever had!

[sidewinder]

Did you buy them by mail order Brownie or pick them up from Mr Mingus in person?

[brownie]

Did you buy them by mail order Brownie or pick them up from Mr Mingus in person?

←

Mail order!

The copy of 'Music Written for Monterey' came in with a nice thank you card from the then Sue Graham on behalf of Charles Mingus, Enterprises, Inc.!

She apologized for the delay in shipping the album. The delay was due to the fact that the album was originally scheduled to be a single LP, then was changed into a double LP to contain the complete program.

[sidewinder]

Nice story !

Sounds like amazingly attentive customer service, considering the chaos that was no doubt impacting CME at the time. I wonder if your LPs made an appearance in that Mingus 'elephant gun' video inside one of the packed boxes ready for eviction?

[jazzbo]

The reissue also contains a 45rpm addition, isn't that correct?

[sidewinder]

I think you are correct, Jazzbo. Fred also mentioned that there was some nice sound processing done on the vinyl to make the reissue super quiet. I just wish that I had bought a copy of this when I was there to try it out.

[kh1958]

Yes, the 45 is part of the actual Monterey performance that year.

The reissue also contains a 45rpm addition, isn't that correct?

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[brownie]

Nice story !

Sounds like amazingly attentive customer service, considering the chaos that was no doubt impacting CME at the time. I wonder if your LPs made an appearance in that Mingus 'elephant gun' video inside one of the packed boxes ready for eviction?

←

It was with me by the time of Mingus' eviction (November 1966)!

Sue Graham's note which accompanied the shipment was dated June 1966...

[sidewinder]

Hmm. I think the eviction happened Oct 1966, from what I can gather so the LP was sent pre-eviction. Nice idea though !

[kh1958]

It must have been a long wait (five years or so) for the next new Mingus record, which I suppose must have been Bluebird/Reincarnation of a Lovebird on the America label.

Nice story !

Sounds like amazingly attentive customer service, considering the chaos that was no doubt impacting CME at the time. I wonder if your LPs made an appearance in that Mingus 'elephant gun' video inside one of the packed boxes ready for eviction?

←

It was with me by the time of Mingus' eviction (November 1966)!

Sue Graham's note which accompanied the shipment was dated June 1966...

←

[kh1958]

May 21 release date for Mingus at Cornell University:

Disc One

ATFW You (4:42)

Sophisticated Lady (4:23) (Ellington)

Fables of Faubus (29:42)

Orange Was the Colour of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk (15:05)

Take the "A" Train (17:28) (Strayhorn)

Disc Two

Meditations (31:36)

So Long Eric (15:18)

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (6:07)

Jitterbug Waltz (9:59) (Waller)

All compositions by Charles Mingus except where noted

Personnel

Johnny Coles - trumpet

Eric Dolphy - alto sax, bass clarinet, flute

Clifford Jordan - tenor sax

Jaki Byard - piano

Charles Mingus - bass

Dannie Richmond - drums

Information

Date and location

March 18, 1964, Cornell University

Original issue

previously unissued

[kh1958]

A Mingus Birthday Present

WILL FRIEDWALD

1274 words

16 April 2007

The New York Sun

English

Copyright 2007 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. All rights reserved.

Last week at the Allen Room, at a reception to raise money and awareness for the ongoing disaster in New Orleans, one particular speaker brought us back to a Crescent City crisis that occurred 47 years ago. This was Ruby Bridges Hall, who had been the first black child to integrate the Louisiana public school system in 1960. That Mrs. Hall is still only 52 was in itself kind of shocking; it forced us to remember that the American shame of institutionalized racism was very much a reality within most of our lifetimes.

Perhaps not coincidentally, for the next two weeks, a mini-festival will be held to commemorate the 85th birthday of Charles Mingus (1922–79), the jazz icon who perhaps devoted more energy than anyone to combating the evils of segregation. All will occur just outside the doors of the Allen Room, in various nooks and crannies of Lincoln Center.

Under the stewardship of Mingus's resourceful widow, Sue Mingus, no less than three posthumous ensembles currently operate in Mingus's name and play his compositions: Mingus Dynasty, which replicates the sextet format that the bassist used for most of his performing career, and two larger groups, the Mingus Big Band and the more classically oriented Mingus Orchestra. Usually these three groups alternate on Tuesdays at the Iridium, but this week all three will appear on different nights at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. On April 23, the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble will offer its own program of Mingus music at Dizzy's. And the climax of the series will arrive on April 25, when the celebrated conductor and scholar Gunther Schuller leads a massed 30-piece orchestra in Mingus's sprawling epic, "Epitath."

Also on the horizon are two CD releases containing rare performances by Mingus - a 1970 concert in Paris previously issued only in France (Sunnyside Records), and a completely unknown appearance from March, 1964, at Cornell University, to be issued as a double-CD package by Blue Note. The latter is of special historical importance: The spring of 1964 was a championship season for the bassist and bandleader, who performed a famous concert at Town Hall on April 4 before launching a tour of Europe. It would become the most famous tour of the most celebrated edition of virtually any Mingus ensemble, featuring Eric Dolphy (reeds), Jaki Byard (piano), Clifford Jordan (tenor sax), Johnny Coles (trumpet), and Dannie Richmond (drums).

Until now, it was generally believed that Mingus introduced this particular edition of the sextet, as well as three of his most famous compositions, at Town Hall. But the discovery of the Cornell concert reveals that he had this group together and was playing this music at least two weeks earlier. The Cornell show includes classic performances of Mingus's two most famous anti-discrimination statements, "Fables of Faubus" and "Meditations" (aka "Meditations on Integration").

Mingus originally introduced "Fables of Faubus" in 1959, in response to the damage done by Orville Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, who had closed down the high school system in Little Rock rather than let black children share a classroom with white children (in direct defiance of an order to integrate from President Eisenhower). The original "Fables of Faubus" ran a mere eight minutes, but Mingus revived it in 1964, partly in response to the Faubusian rancor of Alabama governor George Wallace.

"Fables of Faubus" was the central work of the April 1964 tour, and Mingus introduced the new, expanded version at Cornell. The written part of "Fables" is less than two minutes, which is comparatively short considering that all the April performances of it are roughly 30 minutes long. The melody, written in 4/4 and A-flat, is phrased as a tango in the tradition of Kurt Weill.

In evoking Weimar-era Germany, Mingus was obviously comparing Faubus and Wallace to the Nazis, an irony that would not have been missed by jazz audiences of the 1960s. In calling the work "Fables," Mingus had at least two meanings - a fable in the sense of a myth or an old story that is just not true, and a fable like a folly in the sense of Florenz Ziegfeld, an extravagant story staged for our amusement. "Fables" is not only a piece of music, but of theatre, and in the way the six soloists make their individual statements, it can almost be seen as a Ziegfeld-style revue.

Certainly, the Cornell concert of 1964 did take on theatrical dimensions, both in terms of the performance and the subject matter. Each of the players' turns is hardly a "solo" in the sense of your usual jazz ensemble, but something more like an vaudeville act, an extended statement of taste, culture, and history.

First up is trumpeter Coles, who begins by imitating Mingus's sometime collaborator, Miles Davis. He deliberately mimics the trumpeter's tone and several stock burnished phrases circa 1959. When Byard takes over, he references familiar music in an altogether different way, taking several key American patriotic anthems, "Yankee Doodle" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and turning them on their ear. Just in it case it isn't clear what Byard thinks of the segregationists, he plays a few bars of Chopin's funeral march.

As Byard's section ends, the theme is reprised with Coles doing Ellingtonian wah-wahs, Dolphy blowing bass clarinet, and the group detouring through Latin and boogie-shuffle interludes. Out of nowhere Clifford Jordan is upon us, in a mostly upper-register solo that sums up 20 years of jazz history from bebop to freebop - the latter represented in a largely unaccompanied section in which he wails a free-form blues. The other horns gradually fall in behind him, with much sobbing and gnashing of teeth; when Byard and the rhythm section return, we are ready for it, and at one point he enters into a pistolsat-10-paces duel with drummer Richmond.

Mingus then reminds us that he was, in fact, one of the very first bassists to claim the privilege of soloing alongside the frontline horns. He takes a cue from Byard and dwells on "My Country Tis of Thee," working other tunes like "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," "Blues in the Night," and "It Ain't Necessarily So," in and out of it. When Dolphy enters on bass clarinet, he plays the instrument as if he's just discovered it, starting with avant-garde screeches in the upper register, then an unaccompanied ad-lib passage in the lower that sounds more classical, and a trip to exotic lands and sounds with Eastern harmonies that sound neither major nor minor. He climaxes the piece and very nearly the whole evening - even though it's only the third number of the first half.

There are many other highlights in this amazing two-hour concert, not least of which is the other piece on the subject, "Mediations on Integration." For his political stance, Mingus and his five musicians end sweetly but swingingly on two fast, soulful waltzes - Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz," featuring Dolphy on flute, and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

The latter is played in a catchy 6/4 with modal overtones, perhaps somewhat irreverently, but Mingus had too much respect for other cultures to play it caustically or sarcastically. In that sense, he makes "Irish Eyes" one of the most eloquent pleas for racial and ethnic unity that I've ever heard. It's a bold statement from a time when even the daily routine of going to school amounted an act of unbelievable bravery.

[ejp626]

Ok, I need this one. It sounds amazing.

[brownie]

The Charles Mingus Sextet Paris TNP 1970 was issued with the 'kind permission of Susan Graham Mingus' according to the back liner notes!

It came out on the Ulysse label in 1988.

[sal]

The Charles Mingus Sextet Paris TNP 1970 was issued with the 'kind permission of Susan Graham Mingus' according to the back liner notes!

It came out on the Ulysse label in 1988.

Who is in the band for this recording?

[brownie]

Who is in the band for this recording?

Eddie Preston, trumpet, Charles McPherson, alto, Bobby Jones, tenor, Jaki Byard, piano, Mingus, bass, Dannie Richmond, drums.

[sal]

Thanks brownie! Sounds like a good one.

[brownie]

It's very good!

From the same Mingus group that recorded this America session three days later...