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| 2.876 Ft
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| 1. | Mysterious Blues
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| 2. | Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away)
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| 3. | Vassarlean
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| 4. | Me and You Blues
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| 5. | Body and Soul
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| 6. | R&R
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| 7. | Stormy Weather
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Jazz
For all Charles Mingus's reputation as composer, arranger and bandleader, he was also a trail-blazing bassist. Plangent of tone, melodically daring and rhythmically momentous, here we find Mingus gigging a deep swinging groove on a selection of standards and impromptu blues.
Though he's been dead for over 20 years now, Charles Mingus was without a doubt the greatest bass and piano-playing composer/ band leader that jazz has ever seen. This seven track collection focuses on the mellower, more poetic side of his recordings while he was at the Candid Records label. Many legendary sidemen are featured on cuts on this compilation, including Booker Ervin (tenor sax), Eric Dolphy (alto sax), Roy Eldridge (trombone) and Ted Curson (trumpet). Includes 'Stormy Weather' and 'Mysterious Blues'. 2000 release. Standard jewelcase.
Of course, our title's a misnomer. Mingus plays it 'cool'? Mingus never played it cool in his life. He was a man of raging passion, pride and prejudice whose music was always infused with a tumultuous sense of commitment, whatever he was playing. So, when we say 'cool' perhaps we mean that the current selection is other than what may be termed hardcore Mingus. Not here will you find the magnificent, sprawling multi-themed opuses aspiring to Ellingtonian grandeur of the 'Ah Um' (1959) or 'The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady' (1963) albums, nor the shouting, roaring return to the righteousness of the 'Blues And Roots' (1959) set, nor the ragged Charlie Parker homage 'Bugs' (1960), nor the bold Ornette Coleman-flavoured experiments of pieces like 'What Love?' (1960).
What we do have - selected from the catalogue of Candid Records, for whom Mingus recorded for only a few months in 1960 - is Mingus as leader and pervading spirit, driving his musical compatriots through a selection of standards and impromptu blues. No dense charts to navigate, no tricky mid-piece changes of tempo, just a deep swinging groove to play on and some great musicians to do it with.
It's worth remembering that for all Charles Mingus's reputation as composer, arranger and bandleader (and also, thanks to his outrageous autobiography 'Beneath The Underdog', as a swaggering, pathological egomaniac), he was also a trail-blazing bassist. Plangent of tone, melodically daring and rhythmically momentous, had he never written a note as a composer, he would be remembered as one of the key bass players in the whole history of jazz. Here we hear Mingus, largely free from the responsibility of his compositional genius, digging in on his instrument, inspiring his musicians and playing gloriously.
1. Mysterious Blues
An elegant chorus from pianist Tommy Flanagan heralds a minimally conceived, bouncy 12-bar. Featuring stars from an earlier generation of jazz (Roy Eldridge on trumpet and Basie's drummer from the '30s Jo Jones) alongside players from Mingus's current band (Eric Dolphy on alto, Jimmy Knepper on trombone), it's fascinating to compare Eldridge's taut, progressive swing conception with Dolphy's extraordinarily playful Parker-and-beyond approach. What attracted Eldridge to play with a giant of the modern scene like Mingus? Nat Hentoff overheard Eldridge saying this to the bass man. 'I wanted to find out what bag you're in. Now I know you're in the right bag. I'm not naming names, but a lot of them are so busy being busy that they forget the basics. They don't get all the way down into the music. You did baby.'
2. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
A joyous performance of a vintage standard introduced by Bing Crosby in 1931. Mingus states the theme, Tommy Flanagan takes the bridge followed by Mingus again, then two typically neat and witty choruses from Eldridge with harmon mute plunged tight into his horn. An entire chorus of drum solo from Jo Jones precedes Eldridge's soaring final statement on open horn. Listeners with a keen sense of pulse may detect the beat go awry for a few bars after Jones's chorus though better perhaps to concentrate on the improvised musical 'conversation' between Eldridge and Mingus in the final moments, a technique Mingus and Dolphy utilised elsewhere (e.g., 'What Love?') to extraordinary effect.
3. Vassarlean
The single piece of characteristic Mingusonia in this collection. Also recorded as 'Weird Nightmare' in '46 and 'Smooch' with Miles Davis in '53 (like Ellington's, Mingus's themes would crop up in different guises throughout his career), here it was named after a rich college girl that Charles perceived to be a potential lover as well as a prospective patron of his art. Seductive and yet essentially melancholy of tone, trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer does tender justice to the aching melody (reminiscent in places of the song 'You Don't Know What Love Is') while Booker Ervin on tenor and Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet sketch complimentary lines of a suitably dark hue.
4. Me And You Blues
Low down and dirty, Eldridge is on declamatory form and treated to an old-style stop-time chorus from the rhythm section mid-way through. Tommy Flanagan refuses to blow his cool through his piano solo, despite a decidedly assertive shuffle from Mingus. Roy returns to scale further heights, Jones whips up behind him and the coda has a little more of that bass and trumpet 'conversation' stuff. The low-register parp from Eldridge at the end reflects the relaxed earthy mood of the music.
5. Body And Soul
Simply gorgeous. The harmonies for this 1930 Johnny Green tune had become a jazz musician's obligatory assault course since Coleman Hawkins's famous 1939 version and Roy negotiates them with the knowing insouciance of a master in two separate two-chorus episodes, one at the opening, the other at the end. Following a double-time break shared between Eldridge and Mingus, Eric Dolphy lets fly with a riotous solo of great virtuosity, beauty and humour. Both Jimmy Knepper and Tommy Flanagan make telling contributions with Jo Jones taking intelligent care of the dynamics; notice the two shifts of gear during Flanagan's solo. Mingus's unaccompanied solo is a fine example of his horn-like melodic conception.
6. R and R
The coolest groove in this collection - listen to Jones's ride cymbal and Mingus's walking at the top of the track - and an original Eldridge blowing vehicle based on the chords of George Gershwin's 'I Got Rhythm'. Once more Roy represents the voice of the sly elder and Dolphy the brilliant, respectfully mischievous voice of the new generation.
7. Stormy Weather
After Mingus's fake introduction (it was a studio recording), we have the least adulterated glimpse - in this collection - of the extraordinary Eric Dolphy. He lays the famous Harold Arlen tune out with great poise, making much of the blurry 'blue' notes in the melody and the space in this piano-less quartet, before addressing the business of improvisation with astounding rigour, intelligence and imagination. Note also droll interchanges between trumpeter Ted Curson and Mingus in a recording that probably comes the closest on this album to capturing the essence of a typical Mingus-led small group performance of the period.
---Chris Ingham |
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