Mingus: Changes

[Late]

Good Jesus. When was the last time you listened to these volumes? I think now that George Adams likely had the greatest intuitive understanding and handle on what Mingus wanted out of his horn players.

Jackie McLean? Booker Ervin? Shafi Hadi? Roland Kirk? Eric Dolphy? All, I would say, hugely successful in their respective Mingus units, but to my ears there's something additional about Adams' work. Perhaps this is because he had the lucky advantage of coming after these other luminaries in the long, long line of Mingus saxophonists.

Oh well. It doesn't really matter. Just listen to Adams' solo on "Free Cell Block F, 'Tis Nazi U.S.A."

Then listen to Jack Walrath on "Black Bats and Poles." Good Moses. Almost better than that first crushing love you had in college.

[JSngry]

"Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love" knocked me out from Day One, and still does. I transcribed the tune, even used it for an arranging project. The teacher say, "DAMN, Jim - where do you FIND these tunes?"

The first year after I heard Adams solo in it , I went around telling any and everybody who would listen that the "next 'Trane" had arrived.

Ok, so I was wrong. But that' STILL one helluva solo and one helluvan album.

[connoisseur series500]

I LOVE "Changes One" and "Changes Two."

Outstanding sessions.

My favorite tune is the one called "Sue's changes" or something like that. My interpretation is that Mingus describes this women in all her varied glory: the ups and downs, the delights and disappointments; when she's romantic and alluring, and when she's pms-ing bigtime. A masterpiece of a song.

[BFrank]

What was great was that George, Don Pullen and Dannie Richmond continued the legacy of this group with their own George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet.

[sidewinder]

Not to forget 'Mingus Moves' too, which forms a very nice triumvirate with the two 'Changes' albums for Adams/Pullen's participation. 'For Harry Carney', who had recently passed away, is a personal fave from the 'Changes' sessions.

The recent 'Massey Hall' book has a nice visual description of this band with Adams topped in a fez, Walrath with flower shirt and afro and Mingus glaring at the back looking like Moses at his bass. Visually, created quite a hit on the campus/festival circuit and earned Mingus pretty good money at the time.

Edited July 24, 2003 by sidewinder

[Alexander Hawkins]

What about the George Adams vocal on 'Devil Woman'! B) B)

[Alexander Hawkins]

p.s. on the subject of Mingus reed players, Rahsaan really gives George Adams what for (in a nice way) on that Carnegie Hall album!

[dave9199]

I wanted to know what people thought of Mingus's 1970's albums.

Let My Children Hear Music

Mingus Moves

Live At Carnegie Hall

Changes One

Changes Two

Cumbia Jazz & Fusion

Three Or Four Shades Of Blues

Me, Myself & Eye

Something Like A Bird

[JSngry]

I wanted to know what people thought of Mingus's 1970's albums.

Let My Children Hear Music

Mingus Moves

Live At Carnegie Hall

Changes One

Changes Two

Cumbia Jazz & Fusion

Three Or Four Shades Of Blues

Me, Myself & Eye

Something Like A Bird

Since you asked ...

Let My Children Hear Music - Classic, Perfect, etc. The CD has a totally unnecessary "bonus" cut and lacks the priceless essay that the early LPs came with. But get this puppy any way you can. It IS that good. Perhaps Mingus' most "fully realized" vision.

Mingus Moves - Not my favorite, sounds a little disspirited overall to me. Certainly not a BAD record, just not a great one.

Live At Carnegie Hall - more of a jam session than a "Mingus Record", but a good'un, no doubt. Plus, you get to hear the "lesson" that Rahsaan gave Adams that Red alluded to earlier (and I really do think that Adams grew up musically after that, coincidence or not).

Changes One, Changes Two - Definitive, simple as that. I much prefer One to Two, but you goota have both.

Cumbia Jazz & Fusion - Nice. VERY nice. Ambitious, and successfully so.

Three Or Four Shades Of Blues - Three or four shades of ambivalence. Mingus accedes to record company suggetions and makes a record with "contemporary stars" added, also uses pickup on bass for first time (maybe due in part to his devveloping illness), has the best selling record of his career. Just goes to show you...

Me, Myself & Eye, Something Like A Bird - a precursor to the Mingus Big Band, I suppose. Mingus is present but does not play. Not essential, but I've always found "Carolyn (Kiki) Mingus" a minor classic, what with Lee Konitz' superb reading of the melody and bittersweet improvisation.

Two more from the 70s - MINGUS AND FRIENDS AT CARNEGIE HALL (Columbia). Plenty of good playing on this one, but sloppy recording and editing. Hopefully somebody will make it right (or as right as is possible) someday. The blues duet between Mingus and Gene Ammons alone is worth the cost of admission.

And, whatever that Lionel Hampton-sponsored album was, it's pretty good, better to my ears than the last 3 Atlantics, and as far as I can gather, Mingus' last recorded session as a player.

[BFrank]

I wonder why "Changes One" and "Changes Two" haven't been released in a single set?

Re-mastered, additional tracks, expanded liners - what's the hang up?

This IS classic stuff!

[Dmitry]

"Me Myself An Eye" is the least interesting Mingus record I've heard, considering the unattainable level of his musicanship.

[king ubu]

I do like the Changes albums, also Moves, but somehow Mingus seems muted to me. And the sound of the recordings clearly show of what decade they are - and I think not for the benefit of the music in any way! Anyone has similar feelings? I think the fire in Mingus, his atrocity, his ferocity or whatever, is not present anymore.

Cumbia Jazz Fusion is good, too, although somehow I would like to hear the complete session (even if it consisted only of snippets edited together later). How 'bout a nice 2CD set, disc one containing nice remastered versions of the original album (and give us that liner notes! - they did not print them on the Rhino reissue!) and disc two having the complete session, chatter included.

ubu

[kh1958]

Two more from the 70s - MINGUS AND FRIENDS AT CARNEGIE HALL (Columbia). Plenty of good playing on this one, but sloppy recording and editing. Hopefully somebody will make it right (or as right as is possible) someday. The blues duet between Mingus and Gene Ammons alone is worth the cost of admission.

They already fixed Mingus and Friends (at Philharmonic Hall). The whole concert was re-released as a 2 CD set a couple of years ago, though the Mingus quote is apt ("too many friends").

[kh1958]

Good Jesus. When was the last time you listened to these volumes? I think now that George Adams likely had the greatest intuitive understanding and handle on what Mingus wanted out of his horn players.

Jackie McLean? Booker Ervin? Shafi Hadi? Roland Kirk? Eric Dolphy? All, I would say, hugely successful in their respective Mingus units, but to my ears there's something additional about Adams' work. Perhaps this is because he had the lucky advantage of coming after these other luminaries in the long, long line of Mingus saxophonists.

Oh well. It doesn't really matter. Just listen to Adams' solo on "Free Cell Block F, 'Tis Nazi U.S.A."

Then listen to Jack Walrath on "Black Bats and Poles." Good Moses. Almost better than that first crushing love you had in college.

That's the greatest jazz group of the last 30 years, in my opinion.

[kh1958]

I disagree that Mingus sounds "muted" on Changes. Actually, he is at his peak, and For Harney Carney features one of his deepest and best solos on record.

Mingus Moves isn't perfect like Changes, but it also is a rather powerful recording.

Also, I don't know about this business about Roland Kirk teaching George Adams a lesson on Mingus at Carnegie Hall. Kirk is unbelievable on that recording, but Adams is rather strong also. There's another jam session, Newport in New York, where Kirk teaches Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims, James Moody, and Flip Philips a similar lesson (that is, he can overwhelm almost anyone at a jam session).

[JSngry]

I meant that Adams, at least the recordings I've heard him on, tended to be a bit "undisciplined" in his playing before his encounter with Kirk. Kirk basically plays him his whole solo back in, what, 4 bars?, and then moves on. And on. That's a "lesson", believe me, one that any musician would find impossible to miss.

Coincidentally or not, Adams became a GREATLY more disciplined and focused player afterwards. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the cat, but early on, he coulda used some self-editing, or whatever you want to call it, which he certainly developed late on.

As for Mingus's energy level, you gotta remember that the guy was pretty heavily medicated at the time, and began getting ill shortly after he came off the meds.. And aside from that, the edition of the band that had Hamiett Bluiett in it along with Adams & Pullen cast Mingus for the first time in the role of "musical conservative" in is own band! His comments at the time seem to indicate a mixture of feelings about the "wilder" elements being brought to his music. Crazy, eh?

[king ubu]

There's a quote by Mingus along the lines of: Earlier, when everybody played walking bass, he didn't, now, that no one plays walking bass, he does it...

I know his health wasn't that good anymore. And it's clear that it shows in the music, or at least in what Mingus himself is playing. And I also know how highly regarded these Changes albums are among Mingus fans - however, I somehow can't chime in here. I can agree that they're (among) the best he did in his last decade, but with me they nevertheless are far from ranking close to his pre 1965 stuff.

Maybe that's my fault. Need a pair of new ears or something...

ubu

[Joe]

"Orange Was The Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blue" on CHANGES TWO.

Damn!!!!!

[sidewinder]

Ubu - I'm inclined to agree. Fine as the 'Changes' and 'Moves' albums are, one listen to the content of the Mosaic Candid does seem to indicate that a degree of fire, commitment and (likely) general all-round fury, was lost after the mid-60s. Mingus seems to have generally operated at his very best when under pressure and pursuing the real and imaginary demons.

Incidentally, wasn't Mingus taking Mellaril (liquid cosh) under prescription for a couple of years in the late 60s?

Edited July 25, 2003 by sidewinder

[JSngry]

It's different. not worse (or better), just different. People often have different stories to tell, or different ways to tell them, as they grow older, and often, battered. It's just my opinion, of course, but I think the Changes albums tell every bit as compelling a story as do the earlier works. The "tone" is different, but so were the times. Hell, so was the man!

Records are just documents. Sometimes you gotta dig WHAT'S being documented rather than WHO, figure out the difference (and the commonality) and put all that in context. Again, just my opinion.

But I think it's selling both an artist and one's self as a listener short if one let's one's "image" of a significant artist (and lord knows, Mingus qualifies as one of those!) be limited or formed strictly by their "classic" work. What is viewed as "classic" is in many instances a snapshot of a relatively brief period in a much longer life. Oftimes, an artist's "Classic" work spans only 5-10 years out of a career that covers a lot more than that. Does the artist cease being relevant or interesting? Sometimes, sure, if they just coast or otherwise stop being involved with life on anything more than a "professional" level. But sometimes, the storytelling skills remain intact, but take on a different tact, and that's what I think happened with Mingus. For one thing, he got back in touch with his "Inner Tristano" after a 20 or so year hiatus. Why? I don't know! But it's one of many things I hear in later Mingus that I don't hear in the "classic" stuff. Different times, more life lived, different tales to tell. different perspectives on life. Why not?

Again, this is all just my 2 cents worth, and I'll give you a nickel to take it off my hands for me!

[king ubu]

I'm completely with you on this Jim

I actually like lots of Mingus - from that early sides on the Uptown disc up to the "Mingus at Monterey" (I still haven't got "Music written for...", otherwise it would sure be up to that one). It's just that Mingus' later stuff has not yet grabbed me as his other records. Though I will give them Changes a close listen as soon as I can. (and then I've got to admit that I still don't have "Have you Children..." -_- )

ubu

[jazzbo]

I need to spin these again, thanks for the reminder folks. Like Jim "Duke Ellington's Song of Love" is a real standout for me---it just floors me, it's just so damned BEAUTIFUL and it captures a lot of essences. BOTH versions. Also dig "Orange" too, I've always loved that composition in all its wardrobe.

This is the beginning of the period of his recordings where I don't focus on MINGUS when I listen most of the time. I listen to the others, or to the arrangement and composition. . . before this period somehow Charles really draws me in and I listen to him almost as if he were the eye of the storm, but on these later ones ---and increasingly more so the later they get--- I am less focused on his presence and performance. But I really like most all of them, the only one I really can't bring myself to put on any longer is the "Three or Four Shades of Blue"---it just doesn't seem to offer me much.

This working band with Adams was one of his lengthier ones and would have been a mother to see live!

Edited July 25, 2003 by jazzbo

[Late]

A mother indeed.

It would be nice if the Changes albums were remastered once again, perhaps with a new remixing stuck in there. As they are now, they're actually not too bad. Thank goodness we at least have them on disc! (Were any of the later Atlantics reissued in Japanese editions?)

That 1974 band — I can't think of a single member who didn't bring a certain type of "fire" to that group's sound. George Adams' solos are often just as ecstatic as Roland Kirk's, say, on "Hog Callin' Blues" from Oh Yeah, Don Pullen is virtually nonpareil (with only Jaki Byard, as I hear it, matching Pullen's brilliance, though in almost an entirely different manner), and I think Jack Walrath may very well have been Mingus's most fully realized trumpet player ever (though Lonnie Hilyer's work seems largely under-documented, and what I've heard is pretty eye-and-ear opening).

There were other 70's editions, too. The group with Charles McPherson, Lonnie Hilyer, and Bobby Jones was tight, and — argh! — I can't remember the other tenor player who figured in prominently around this time. His name is on the tip of my tongue ...

[jazzbo]

Ricky Ford? Paul Jeffrey? Eddie Preston?

Edited July 25, 2003 by jazzbo

[Late]

The tenor player's name on the tip of my tongue was ... Billy Harper. But now I don't know if Harper even played with Mingus! Sheesh.