{"id":541,"date":"2011-08-16T19:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/?p=541"},"modified":"2011-08-16T19:51:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T19:51:22","slug":"introducing-a-charles-mingus-decade-the-flowering-of-a-jazz-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/2011\/08\/16\/introducing-a-charles-mingus-decade-the-flowering-of-a-jazz-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing a Charles Mingus decade – the flowering of a jazz genius"},"content":{"rendered":"

The truth of what I am<\/h2>\n
\n

“I’m going to keep on getting \tthrough and finding out the kind of man I am through my music. \tThat’s the one place I can be free.” – Mingus in conversation \twith Nat Hentoff (A Musician Beyond Category – From Gadfly<\/em> April 1999)\u201cIn my music, I\u2019m trying to play the truth of \twhat I am. The reason it\u2019s difficult is because I\u2019m changing all \tthe time.\u201d -Charles Mingus<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Charles Mingus playing at the Bi Centenial, Lower Manhattan July 4, 1976. Photo by Tom Marcello via Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the first in a series of articles which \twill explore some of the music Charles Mingus recorded in the \tastonishing decade in which he emerged from being a sideman of note \tand great virtuosity to being a composer and leader of imposing \tstature. Of course this decade includes that incredible year for \tjazz, 1959, during which Mingus was involved with four major \treleases as leader.<\/p>\n

The decade in question is from the incredible \tJazz at Massey Hall<\/em> of May 1953 to the Jazz Workshop \trecording Right Now<\/em> of June 1964, a period in which he was \tinvolved in some 30 releases. OK, so it’s a year more than a decade \tbut you get the idea – it’s a convenient period starting and ending \twith very different and very great live recordings (there will be a \tcouple more live recording thrown into the mix as we go along). I \twill concentrate to some extent on numbers that recur throughout \tthese recording to give an idea of the growth and change that Mingus \tinsisted on throughout his life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

First just a little about Mr Charles Mingus, a \ttowering genius of jazz.<\/h2>\n
\n

He was born 22 April 1922 at a US Army base in \t\tNogales, Arizona and grew up in Watts, Los Angeles, where his \t\tmother fed him a diet of church music and his grandmother took him \t\tto a Holiness church in Watts where he was exposed to the crying, \t\tmoaning and singing of the church people.<\/p>\n

He told Nat Hentoff about this musical \t\tbackground: “All the music I heard when I was a very young \t\tchild was church music. My family went to the Methodist church; in \t\taddition, my stepmother would take me to the Holiness church and \t\tother such churches.<\/p>\n

“The blues was in the churches\u2014moaning \t\tand riffs and that sort of thing between the audience and the \t\tpreacher.”<\/p>\n

In his genes he carried a wide cultural mix of \t\tChinese, English, Swedish and African American, but the blues seem \t\tto have been central to his music over the years. It comes out in \t\talmost everything he recorded in one form or another.<\/p>\n

From a relatively early age he became interested \t\tin jazz, most especially the musician who for most of his life was \t\this idol, Duke Ellington. In 1943 he toured with Louis Armstrong \t\tand later played in Lionel Hampton’s band, in a trio with Red Norvo \t\tand Tal Farlow before joining, for a brief and shining moment, the \t\torchestra of his idol, Ellington. Here his tempestuous temper led \t\tto his being allegedly the only musician (although Sidney Bechet \t\tmight also have been) to be fired by the Duke.<\/p>\n

Mingus increasingly demanded respect for his \t\tmusic, becoming intolerant of audiences who did not pay sufficient \t\tattention to the music. He once said to a nightclub audience when \t\tthe clinking of ice in glasses was distracting him: “Isaac \t\tStern (the great classical violinist) doesn’t have to put up with \t\tthis shit!”<\/p>\n

His famous temper led him into many difficulties \t\twith club owners, fans and even fellow-musicians. He once famously \t\thit trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth, causing damage to \t\tKnepper’s embouchure and leading to a court case.<\/p>\n

Mingus was a larger-than-life personality who \t\tcould inspire both awe and fear. He also struggled all his life \t\twith a weight problem, shedding and re-gaining weight regularly.<\/p>\n

He contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis \t\t(also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) which is caused by the \t\tdegeneration of the motor neurons, those nerve cells in the central \t\tnervous system which control voluntary muscle movement. The loss of \t\tmuscle activity leads to atrophy of all the muscles and the loss of \t\tthe ability to initiate and control voluntary movement. The body \t\twastes away, while the mind is still unimpaired, so patients can \t\tliterally watch themselves slowly die.<\/p>\n

Even after he was unable to play, Mingus \t\tcontinued to compose and supervise recording, but was unable to \t\tcomplete a project with Joni Mitchell.<\/p>\n

He died in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1979, where he \t\thad gone with his wife Sue in search of a cure or at least a \t\tpalliative for the disease that was so cruelly taking away \t\teverything he had lived for as a musician.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A look at some important albums<\/h2>\n

Nat Hentoff, in the same article quoted at the start of this post, said of Mingus: “The reason Mingus reached so many people around the world was the depth\u2014sometimes the explosive depth\u2014of his expressions, his emotions.”<\/p>\n

In the posts that follow I will try to look into those depths and see in them what it is that stirs me, and I hope will stir you, to the depth of my being. As Mingus said, “Music is, or was, a language of the emotions.”<\/p>\n

In the articles which follow I will look in a bit more detail at some of the more important recordings of this most creative and growthful decade in Mingus’s life. Of course, this is my personal selection and is based on the recordings that I have access to and knowledge of. Others might argue for a different selection, and that’s jazz for you – always something different and new.<\/p>\n

The albums I am going to examine (not necessarily in separate posts) in this series are:<\/p>\n

Jazz at Massey Hall <\/em>(1953)<\/p>\n

The Charles Mingus Quintet with Max Roach<\/em> (1955)<\/p>\n

Pithecanthropus Erectus<\/em> (1956)<\/p>\n

Mingus in Wonderland <\/em>(1959)<\/p>\n

Blues and Roots <\/em>(1959)<\/a><\/p>\n

Mingus Ah Um<\/em> (1959)
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Mingus Dynasty<\/em> (1959)<\/p>\n

Mingus at Antibes<\/em> (1960)<\/p>\n

Charles Mingus presents Charles Mingus<\/em> (1960)<\/p>\n

Tijuana Moods<\/em> (1962)<\/p>\n

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady<\/em> (1963)<\/p>\n

Right Now<\/em> (1964)<\/p>\n

The first article in the series will look at the first three albums and will be called “Massey Hall to Pithecanthropus.”<\/p>\n

The second article will look at the famous 1959 albums, delving in a bit more detail into Mingus Dynasty<\/em>..<\/p>\n

The third article will take the two important 1960 albums.<\/p>\n

The fourth article will look at Tijuana Moods<\/em>, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady<\/em> and Right Now<\/em>, taking us up to 1964.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Text copyright Tony McGregor 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The truth of what I am “I’m going to keep on getting through and finding out the kind of man I am through my music. That’s the one place I can be free.” – Mingus in conversation with Nat Hentoff (A Musician Beyond Category – From Gadfly April 1999)\u201cIn my music, I\u2019m trying to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"2","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"3","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"3","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1],"tags":[137,28,138],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jazz","category-south-africa","tag-charles-mingus","tag-jazz-2","tag-recordings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz-sa.com\/mcgregorza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}