The MG Album Club #35: Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

[Zeeba Neighba]

Wow! 35 submissions for this iteration of the MG Album Club - fantastic streak. It's been great. Let's keep it going.

I was tasked with the year 1963 and will choose:

Charles Mingus - Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963)

Apologies to The Beatles Please Please Me and to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, two seminal rock albums, but when I got 1963, I knew it had to be a jazz album. Quite a year for jazz (John Coltrane alone had FOUR releases on Impulse that year, all wonderful). Many albums that I play often that year including Jimmy Smith's funky organ jazz album Back at the Chicken Shack and Kenny Burrell's great guitar album Midnight Blue.

Still it was going to be down to two of my favorite jazz albums - both of which might be on my top ten jazz faves (not "best" or "most influential" mind you, but two I turn to most). One is Dexter Gordon's wonderful Our Man in Paris, which I just got on vinyl in April - such a great jazz tenor sax album; love Gordon's sound.

But really was there any other way I could go but Mingus x 5? Surely many here have heard me tout this one before - in fact, after lurking at the ol' MG 10+ years ago, decided to finally post to the forum and wanted to play an album not only that I loved but also that might give me some opening clout that I belonged among you giants of the MG forum. So my first post was this album (it also was my first album posted on the new forum and my choice for 1963 in our yearly album series 2 yrs ago - so yeah I love this one). It was either my first or second Mingus album bought ages ago - why I picked it I still don't know as I certainly didn't know much about Mingus (and if I did I probably would have shied away with the jazz I was listening to at the time). Loved it at first listen as the familiar burst of "II B.S." came barreling out of my speakers.

Many who might not know this album (and I know many here know the album well) will recognize the opener "II B.S." from a 2001 VW Jetta commerical. Those knowledgeable about Mingus will know it's a variation of his "Haitian Fight Song". In fact, several songs here are retreads of Mingus standards: "Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul" appeared on Mingus Ah Um as "Better Git It in Your Soul"; "Theme for Lester Young" is a version of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (also on Ah Um); "Hora Decubitus" is a reworking of "E's Flat Ah's Flat Too".

So Zeeba is essentially giving us an album of retreads - fear not. The originals are classic but these versions are unique and stand alone (some better than the originals) as fantastic reimaginings. Mingus was a brilliant jazz experimenter always pushing the boundaries of jazz. Truly no one at the time was doing what he was doing with big bands/larger combos. But for those who might be turned off by avant garde jazz, never fear (I could have given you Black Saint and the Sinner Lady also from 1963 and considered on of avant garde jazz's greatest statements). Mingus, while always pushing the envelope never veered too much away from his historical influences of Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker to be inaccessible; amidst the cacophony here, Mingus never veers too far away from the melody.

If you're unfamiliar with this one (or haven't played it in awhile), hopefully you'll find something in it to love.

 

[Nickyboy]

He's not smoking on the cover. It can't be very good. I'll pass.

Spoiler

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

He's not smoking on the cover. It can't be very good. I'll pass.

Spoiler

Ha! I thought the same thing as I posted the album cover. He must have been out of cigs during the photoshoot

 

[Ojai Sam]

Spotify Spotify Spotify Spotify Spotify

 

[Ojai Sam]

This record shows Mingus at his unique best. Never one to be pigeonholed, he escaped the bebop-hard bop-post bop trap by creating his own sound. Here, like Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Oliver Nelson and Gil Evans, he manages to weld a large ensemble into a cohesive unit full of color and texture yet leave ample space for individual players to stand out.

Let's see, who else achieved this while putting emphasis on the bass? Why it was Duke Ellington with Jimmy Blanton.

Who wrote the only cover tune on Mingus x 5 to accompany a half-dozen of Charles' originals? Duke Ellington. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

on the Sam-O-Meter.

 

[Old Uncle Toe]

You know what? I liked this. I especially liked I X Love and Celia. I loved the film noir feel of those tracks. Next time my sweetheart and I are dressed up and headed some place fancy, I'm going to play those two tracks in the car.

As someone else mentioned, there's a lot going on, yet Mingus seems to keep the band focused. That really helped me enjoy this over a more improvisational artist such as Coltrane. And I liked that Mingus' bass is out front much of the time. Bass generally doesn't get that chance, and Mingus did well with it.

This was a really good listen. I think I'm going to go backwards in Mingus' collection a little to the albums that contained the ancestors to these songs.

I began a response to this thread and added to it as I went through the album. It ended up too long for general consumption. But if you're bored and need to kill some time, it's inside the spoiler.

Spoiler

I fired this up figuring I’d just have to last through it. But I was pleasantly surprised.

II B.S. was good. Jumpy and fun. I liked the bass a lot and the sax was good. I X Love completely changed it up. But it was good too. As Sergio Mendes was like the soundtrack to a 60’s movie, this was like the soundtrack to a 1940’s film noir detective story. Likewise with Celia. To be honest, the start of Celia sounded like more of I X Love until the tempo kicked up after the intro. But again, it had that sexy sound you’d have behind the narrator as he talks about his late night adventure while the camera pans down a late night city street -- street lights and bright neon signs reflecting on the wet pavement “The Avalon,” “Lucky Seven,” “Sal’s Place..."

I can hear the narrator in my head now. “I made my way back stage, found Sally’s dressing room and knocked. She opened the door and stuck two 44’s in my chest. And a gun…”

I was disappointed that Mood Indigo and Better Get… didn’t continue the movie theme. But I enjoyed them. As someone else mentioned, it’s interesting that Mingus manages to have all these different things going on, yet there seems to be a contiguous sound, a mission, a point to it all. It’s like Coltrane without the confusion. I liked that a lot. And I like that Mingus’ bass is so prevalent in the mix. Bass doesn’t often get to be out front and he made the most of it.

Track 6, Theme for Lester Young was back to the slower tempo. I find I like that better. It’s not back to that movie soundtrack (or maybe it is, a little) but I like the slow, steamy beat of it. The horns are great in this.

Hora Decubitus. This was what saxophone was made for. Well, at the start. It kind of deconstructed in the middle but whatever. It’s jazz. The players should get to goof off once in a while.

Freedom. Ok, this was lame. But it was 1963. It was more relevant then. Maybe people liked it. I’ll never know.

 

[Ojai Sam]

You know what? I liked this. I especially liked I X Love and Celia. I loved the film noir feel of those tracks. Next time my sweetheart and I are dressed up and headed some place fancy, I'm going to play those two tracks in the car.

As someone else mentioned, there's a lot going on, yet Mingus seems to keep the band focused. That really helped me enjoy this over a more improvisational artist such as Coltrane. And I liked that Mingus' bass is out front much of the time. Bass generally doesn't get that chance, and Mingus did well with it.

This was a really good listen. I think I'm going to go backwards in Mingus' collection a little to the albums that contained the ancestors to these songs.

I began a response to this thread and added to it as I went through the album. It ended up too long for general consumption. But if you're bored and need to kill some time, it's inside the spoiler.

Spoiler

I fired this up figuring I’d just have to last through it. But I was pleasantly surprised.

II B.S. was good. Jumpy and fun. I liked the bass a lot and the sax was good. I X Love completely changed it up. But it was good too. As Sergio Mendes was like the soundtrack to a 60’s movie, this was like the soundtrack to a 1940’s film noir detective story. Likewise with Celia. To be honest, the start of Celia sounded like more of I X Love until the tempo kicked up after the intro. But again, it had that sexy sound you’d have behind the narrator as he talks about his late night adventure while the camera pans down a late night city street -- street lights and bright neon signs reflecting on the wet pavement “The Avalon,” “Lucky Seven,” “Sal’s Place..."

I can hear the narrator in my head now. “I made my way back stage, found Sally’s dressing room and knocked. She opened the door and stuck two 44’s in my chest. And a gun…”

I was disappointed that Mood Indigo and Better Get… didn’t continue the movie theme. But I enjoyed them. As someone else mentioned, it’s interesting that Mingus manages to have all these different things going on, yet there seems to be a contiguous sound, a mission, a point to it all. It’s like Coltrane without the confusion. I liked that a lot. And I like that Mingus’ bass is so prevalent in the mix. Bass doesn’t often get to be out front and he made the most of it.

Track 6, Theme for Lester Young was back to the slower tempo. I find I like that better. It’s not back to that movie soundtrack (or maybe it is, a little) but I like the slow, steamy beat of it. The horns are great in this.

Hora Decubitus. This was what saxophone was made for. Well, at the start. It kind of deconstructed in the middle but whatever. It’s jazz. The players should get to goof off once in a while.

Freedom. Ok, this was lame. But it was 1963. It was more relevant then. Maybe people liked it. I’ll never know.

Great post, Toe. I love this kind of close listening.

“Freedom” was not released at the time, so you and producer Bob Thiele were on the same wavelength.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

There's a lot of joy, class and poise in this record. I can't recall a "modern" or even classic rock album (pretty much all I listen to) that has this combination of qualities. It was a different world for Mr. Mingus. Not without suffering, heartache and struggles, but he still managed to create pure beauty. I don't hear that anymore in modern music because anxiety and disassociation run throughout.

I have no idea what I was just trying to say, so if it makes no sense, you'll have to excuse me.

 

[Nickyboy]

No thank you.

 

[axolotl]

Ah... um... I like it!

Within the liner notes writ by Nat Hentoff, Mingus makes the following statement about Duke Ellington: "It's absurd... to put Ellington in polls. A man who has accomplished what he has shouldn't be involved in contests. He should just be assumed to be in first place every year." Mingus deserves a bass-boat-load of the same respect.

Or, you could just say Mingus' name five times and be done with it. Same can't be said about Beetlejuice.

I give it stars.