Charles Mingus with Red Norvo Trio

[Teasing the Korean]

I'm curious how Mingus felt about this trio in retrospect. Did Mingus talk much about his time with Red Norvo much in later interviews or writings? I'm not sure I ever encountered anything.

[Big Beat Steve]

Now that you mention it, indeed all the sources dealing with this trio (liner notes, Jazz Masters of the 50s book etc.) that I am aware of just mention the perfect interaction of the trio but no personal impressions by Mingus.

The "All Music Guide to Jazz, 2nd Ed." (1996), however, had this to say about the end of his stint with the trio: "He exited the ensemble a year later after an incident in which he was temporarily replaced by a white bassist for a New York television show. This ugliness was caused by a combination of union and racial politics."

Now Mingus being the way he was, I wonder if he really would have separated this (undoubtedly galling and insulting) incident (which must have hurt him deeply) from his overall opinion of the musical achievements of the trio if he had been queried at length about his stay with Red Norvo.

Maybe it's better to let the music just speak for itself ...

Edited July 5, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

Thanks. Didn't know about that incident, but it all makes sense considering.

[king ubu]

Here's the beginning of chapter 33 of Mingus' "Beneath the Underdog" - he wouldn't even give Norvo's (or Kessel's) name:

So now you've got a job again, boy, in a trio, boy, with a famous name. The leader has red hair, boy, and the guitar player is a white man, too, from North Carolina. You're playing in San Francisco and making records and the critics are writing good things. Boy! Boy! Boy!

Then You go on the road. How does it feel to drive through the South as a member of an otherwise all-white trio and in addition to that you've got a white girl traveling with you? How do you do it? I'll tell you. First you straighten your hair. That's before you start. You're traveling in two cars and your girl rides with you on the road. But before you get to another town, out on the empty highway your girl changes cars and pretends to be the wife of one of the white men so you can check into hotels. You trade rooms that night and again in the morning so she can walk out with her "husband."

How do you go into restaurants? Your girl and her "husband" go in first, then the leader of the band takes you in, big white-man style. You've got straight hair and your skin isn't too dark and you're in the company of a famous guy. But the bouncer looks right at you, looks at you hard, slamming his fist into his palm again and again. He doesn't say anything but you know what he's thinking and he wants you to know.

How does it feel on your last stop in the South when you find in the morning the two white guys have checked out and you're left in that hotel, boy, alone with a white woman? It feels very dangerous, that's how it feels. You pack and go downstairs separately not knowing what's going to happen. But thank God nobody says anything, they just look at you funny. You get out as fast as you can, get in your car and drive out of that town, and down the road apiece in front of a restaurant you see your leader's car and inside are the two dumb white boys having breakfast.

The trip is almost over so you don't quit. You drive straight through to New York in two cars and go in with this trio to a famous jazz club on the Upper East Side. You want to work and the critics are making it worthwhile--if the bread's low, they a least boost your ego.

How does it feel when the Redhead's trio is asked to do an important, special television show in color? It feels great. At night you're playing this first-class club and daytimes you're rehearsing in the studio. One day during a break you're tuning the bass and you see this producer or somebody talking to the Redhead across the room and they're both looking at you. You feel something is wrong but you don't know what. In a few minutes some guy calls out: "That's all for today, tomorrow at ten," and everyone leaves. While you're packing up, the Redhead comes over and says something like this: "Charlie, I'm sorry to tell you but I have to get another bassist for this show. We'll continue at the club but I can't use you here." What do you say? You ask the name of the new bassist, of course. He tells you. The bassist is white. Now what you do, curse him out? Probably. You don't remember what you said. He goes away fast. That night he doesn't come to the club, he sends word he's sick. After that somehow you never get a chance to talk to him, he comes late and cuts out early. You have to find out. You start going by where he's staying, at a residential hotel on Broadway. But the desk always says he's not in, they won't even ring. You never get a chance to discuss it with him. Schitt, he can't talk anyway--can't talk about anything real, only about what chick you're going with and like that. You can't talk to the guitarist about it either, he never says anything. Two dumb white boys that can't talk to you. So you quit the trio. How can you play with guys you can't talk to? You wonder and wonder why he didn't tell you face to face or why he didn't walk off the TV job--some leaders would have. He wanted the money too bad. If he had hired Red Mitchell or somebody like that to replace you, you might have even believed it was something to do with your playing. But what's good in a club is good anywhere else, wouldn't you think? It didn't take much to figure it out. The way television was in those days, they had sponsors who worried about "the Southern market" and "mixing" was taboo.

Yeah, there are certain things in this life that nobody likes to talk about. Nobody white, that is.

~ Charles Mingus: Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus. Edited by Nel King. New York, 1991, pp. 321-323 [first edition: New York, 1971].

[Big Beat Steve]

Here's the beginning of chapter 33 of Mingus' "Beneath the Underdog" - he wouldn't even give Norvo's (or Kessel's) name:

FARLOW's, please!

Now if all this really happened exactly that way (and wasn't blown up too much by Mingus' temper) it's too bad Red Norvo had to chicken out like that in this situation. Mingus is right - others would have walked out.

OTOH, the way Mingus sneers at Reed Norvo and Tal Farlow when talking about the situation BEFORE that incident reeks of a situation where he seemed to have worked himself into a lasting temper AFTER the fact (long after). Things cannot possibly have been that bad for his entire stay or else he would not have stayed for more than a year. So no need for this kind of put-down (unless you spend most of your life in a fighting mood).

But let's not forget - the way the U.S. society still was downright rotten race-wise in 1951 all three (or four) involved in this in the end were victims of some far larger injustice, and except for a handful of really intrepid characters I'd guess many musicians probably were just intimidated by the circumstances and tried to keep a low profile. Not that this should excuse anything, but the evil was rooted far deeper in society at large, not in the way this or that musician behaved in this or that situation.

Anyway, now we know it wasn't Red Mitchell who subbbed for Mingus on that show (he actually was my first guess as he replaced Charlie Mingus in that trio). Would sure like to know who it was who did that faking for that show. Might make another jazz biography just that little bit more interesting.

[king ubu]

Sorry, Farlow of course!

It's been a while that I played these sessions, but I still remembered about the passage in Ming's book.

Not sure if I see this as such as put-down... I mean after all Mingus is rather tempered, it seems... and getting pissed about the thoughtlessness of the "two dumb white boys" who went to have breakfast is quite fair, after all.

[Big Beat Steve]

Not sure if I see this as such as put-down... I mean after all Mingus is rather tempered, it seems... and getting pissed about the thoughtlessness of the "two dumb white boys" who went to have breakfast is quite fair, after all.

Of course it is fair. I just wonder if this was a recurrent situation or a relatively isolated incident in a less than pleasant overall situation where probably one thing led to another.

Maybe Mingus, being as hot-tempered as he was, really would not have been the person to state, for example, that the situation overall was fairly OK and a career step ahead for him (again, would he otherwise have stayed for more than one year if he had been confronted with that kind of thoughtlessness or degrading treatment day in, day out?) but that the situation deteriorated during that Southern tour and made things unbearable for him? That would have put things in perspective.

The sad truth is that unfortunately this was no isolated incident. Just remember the shabby and downright "couldn't care less" behavior of Benny Goodman in the face of how Wardell Gray was treated in certain places while in his band. Let's face it, when it came to being articulate and outspoken in everyday life and assuming responsibility for their own employees many band leaders were just utter dimwits.

[gmonahan]

Not sure if I see this as such as put-down... I mean after all Mingus is rather tempered, it seems... and getting pissed about the thoughtlessness of the "two dumb white boys" who went to have breakfast is quite fair, after all.

Of course it is fair. I just wonder if this was a recurrent situation or a relatively isolated incident in a less than pleasant overall situation where probably one thing led to another.

Maybe Mingus, being as hot-tempered as he was, really would not have been the person to state, for example, that the situation overall was fairly OK and a career step ahead for him (again, would he otherwise have stayed for more than one year if he had been confronted with that kind of thoughtlessness or degrading treatment day in, day out?) but that the situation deteriorated during that Southern tour and made things unbearable for him? That would have put things in perspective.

The sad truth is that unfortunately this was no isolated incident. Just remember the shabby and downright "couldn't care less" behavior of Benny Goodman in the face of how Wardell Gray was treated in certain places while in his band. Let's face it, when it came to being articulate and outspoken in everyday life and assuming responsibility for their own employees many band leaders were just utter dimwits.

Or Roy Eldridge with Krupa and Shaw. Such stories are legion. That said, _Beneath the Underdog_ has always been one of the most problematic of jazz autobiographies. Have we ever had a thread on it?

gregmo

[king ubu]

Don't know if there's a thread (didn't do a search), but that's why I was rather cautious in trying to give context to the quote I typed. Contrary to other parts of the book, the paragraph above at least *could* well be true - at least in my opinion.

[kh1958]

It's true that the Red Norvo trio appeared on a TV show without Mingus. The Priestley Mingus book quotes from downbeat (Oct. 19, 1951): "Because bassist Charlie Mingus is not a member of Local 802, he was nixed out of the show at the last minute and Red used Clyde Lombardi instead." Perhaps not the whole story, though.

[mjzee]

What's the best-sounding current source for the Norvo trio with Mingus and Farlow?

[Neal Pomea]

Is there anything newer than 2002's The Modern Red Norvo?

[paul secor]

Is there anything newer than 2002's The Modern Red Norvo?

That's the issue I have - sounds decent to me.

[John L]

I also did not interpret that passage of Mingus as being negative about the music that they were making, only about the difficulties of being in an integrated trio at that time.

[JSngry]

It's true that the Red Norvo trio appeared on a TV show without Mingus. The Priestley Mingus book quotes from downbeat (Oct. 19, 1951): "Because bassist Charlie Mingus is not a member of Local 802, he was nixed out of the show at the last minute and Red used Clyde Lombardi instead." Perhaps not the whole story, though.

Most locals have reciprocity agreements...sounds fishy to me...

[king ubu]

Is there anything newer than 2002's The Modern Red Norvo?

That's the issue I have - sounds decent to me.

To my ears, too - and it has some titles that I think were previously unissued (or just very difficult to find?). I think some other selections were omitted though - which is somewhat silly, as they ought to rather have omitted the date with Bird, which everyone has on at least two other issues, I assume.

But I guess there are nay-sayers, soundwise - I've read many a negative comment on these black Savoy digipacks (using compression or whatever).

[Big Beat Steve]

Is there anything newer than 2002's The Modern Red Norvo?

I cannot comment on the CD reissue above but essentially I agree with King Ubu's comments about the track selection. I for one would not part with my Savoy twofer LP SJL 2212 which includes the entire commercial output of the trio with Mingus (the Raney/Mitchell trio output is on another twofer). It therefore corresponds to the CD, except that it has only part of the alternate takes (but honestly, are FOUR versions of Godchild that essential?).

FWIW, there is at least one other source that adds to the recorded legacy of that trio:

Natural Organic LP 7001 has transcriptions done by the trio in 1950-51 in Chicago; some tracks are versions of the commercially released tunes, others are totally new. These tracks are VERY interesting for an aural comparison. In many details they confirm the general trend of transcriptions vs commercial releases, i.e. they were just that little bit more free-wheeling (difficult to achieve with the virtuosity of the Norvo trio, I know ...). According to Bruyninckx, the (Italian) Queen Disc LP Q-061 has the same material plus even a few tracks more.

As for the incidents described above, I would not doubt they were true, I just wonder if they give the full picture of the entire stay of Mingus with Norvo. You know you can be rightfully sore at two or three insulting incidents. But if you work yourself into a temper about them (understandable too) and gloss briefly over the "rest" (the "better days"?), making things sound as if this was what the entire tenure with the trio was all about, then does this really tell the whole story or will the resulting overall picture be a bit skewed?

[king ubu]

I'll have to look for these airchecks!

And maybe get the vinyl twofers, too... the Raney/Mitchell one is on Savoy as well? Wasn't that period on one of the Fantasy labels? I've yet to hear those... (though I have some on the Raney Quadromania, but I rarely play those ugly sets at all).

As for judging these incidents described by Mingus: I'm not sure... quite possibly, each of these situations would have been *very* annoying and possibly dangerous, so each of them may indeed be reason enough to call it a day, even if it were just two or three over the course of a year. But I'm speculating, of course...

[Big Beat Steve]

And maybe get the vinyl twofers, too... the Raney/Mitchell one is on Savoy as well? Wasn't that period on one of the Fantasy labels? I've yet to hear those...

You are right, my fault - the trio twofer with Raney and Farlow as well as Mitchell is on Prestige P-24108. Additional material from the 1955 Norvo/Farlow/Mitchell trio is on "Tal Farlow - Guitar Player" (Pestige P-24042).

[king ubu]

And maybe get the vinyl twofers, too... the Raney/Mitchell one is on Savoy as well? Wasn't that period on one of the Fantasy labels? I've yet to hear those...

You are right, my fault - the trio twofer with Raney and Farlow as well as Mitchell is on Prestige P-24108. Additional material from the 1955 Norvo/Farlow/Mitchell trio is on "Tal Farlow - Guitar Player" (Pestige P-24042).

... which is another of those Fantasy twofers, judging from the catalogue number?

Have you ever compared their contents to the OJCCDs? Is it all out on CD, too?

[fent99]

I read Underdog recently and enjoyed it though its a challenging read and from this distance (both time and circumstances) its hard to know what is truth or fiction (or exaggeration?). If I understand it right it was cut down from a much larger manuscript. Wonder if any more of it exists anywhere? Did he write much else, any great liner notes?

Back to the music though. I love the Norvo Trio (though my wife hates it) I used to have some airshots on a tape which I remember listening to lots and may still have it so must look. The sound though not great had something a little more forgiving than the studio stuff where the doorbells are pretty bright.

Lastly am I missing anything by having the Savoy Denon single CD (cut down from the vinyl towfer)

[Big Beat Steve]

You are right, my fault - the trio twofer with Raney and Farlow as well as Mitchell is on Prestige P-24108. Additional material from the 1955 Norvo/Farlow/Mitchell trio is on "Tal Farlow - Guitar Player" (Pestige P-24042).

... which is another of those Fantasy twofers, judging from the catalogue number?

Have you ever compared their contents to the OJCCDs? Is it all out on CD, too?

I really cannot tell you. I compared the contents to the usual discographies, found it covered the ground pretty thoroughly as far as master takes are concerned and that was good enough for me. As you know I am pretty much a vinyl junkie so I felt no need to compare things with any later CD releases (as I had the music anyway). In fact, given the huge amount of CD reissues that you have to inspect for duplications with what you already have (if you want to get what is unavailable on vinyl or other reissues) you are glad for ANY CD reissues you do NOT have to worry about.

Lastly am I missing anything by having the Savoy Denon single CD (cut down from the vinyl towfer)

Haven't seen or compared that one either but I guess you are just missing what's on the vinyl twofer but not on the single CD. And then the question if you are "missing" anything depends on how much you are into this early 50s Red Norvo trio music and how essential it is for you to go the whole way.

I know I would have missed a lot. In fact a very long time ago (long before I got my hands on the Savoy 2-LP set) I bought a twofer on the French "Monkey" label (they reissued a whole series of jazz in the mid-70s with quite interesting vintage stuff unavailable elsehere at the time - it introduced me to the Fats Waller piano rolls, for example) that was credited to Charles Mingus and included mid-50s sessions done under his own name on one LP but Red Norvo trio sessions (with Mingus) from the Savoy catalog on the other.

So arithmetically I already had almost half of that Savoy twofer and yet did not regret buying it one second. But that's just me ...

Edited July 7, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[Niko]

I read Underdog recently and enjoyed it though its a challenging read and from this distance (both time and circumstances) its hard to know what is truth or fiction (or exaggeration?). If I understand it right it was cut down from a much larger manuscript. Wonder if any more of it exists anywhere? Did he write much else, any great liner notes?

some of the unreleased passages are read on Hal Willner's Mingus Project "Weird Nightmare"... (an enjoyable CD though I would not get it for those texts alone..)

[fent99]

I read Underdog recently and enjoyed it though its a challenging read and from this distance (both time and circumstances) its hard to know what is truth or fiction (or exaggeration?). If I understand it right it was cut down from a much larger manuscript. Wonder if any more of it exists anywhere? Did he write much else, any great liner notes?

some of the unreleased passages are read on Hal Willner's Mingus Project "Weird Nightmare"... (an enjoyable CD though I would not get it for those texts alone..)

I must listen to this again. I like Wilner's albums and have this (just the disc, no liners) so if its all on the CD I should be fine. Thanks for the prompt.

[king ubu]

Ok, as I'm not home, just checking jazzdisco.org... there's a straight CD reissue of that 24108 (PRCD 24108-2).

The Red Norvo Trio (P-24108 / PRCD 24108-2)

- the entire San Francisco, CA, September 14, 1953 session

- all but 1 title of the Detroit, MI, March, 1954 session

- 3 (of 7) titles from Hollywood, CA, October 6, 1955

- 1 (of 7) title(s) from Hollywood, CA, October 7, 1955

Tal Farlow - Guitar Player (P-24042, no CD)

- the remaining 4 titles from Hollywood, CA, October 6, 1955

- the remaining 6 titles from Hollywood, CA, October 7, 1955

- plus the "Tal Farlow Returns" album (NYC, September 23, 1969)

Quite a mess... so you need to duplicate "The Return of Tal Farlow" in order to complete those October 1955 dates. How silly! Seems there's indeed no CD with those two dates in full!

The original LPs were:

- Red Norvo With Strings (Fantasy LP 3218) (all of that on P-24042)

- Red Norvo Trio (Fantasy LP 3-12) (all, I assume, on 24108)

There ought to be a 3CD or 4CD box collecting these, you know, one of those small ones like the Monk Prestige and Stitt's Bits sets!