Meditations on Integration

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meditations on Integration is a jazz composition by Charles Mingus .

The title

Mingus recorded this composition for the first time in 1964; under the title Meditations it was part of the program of Mingus' sextet with Eric Dolphy , Clifford Jordan , Jaki Byard , Johnny Coles and Dannie Richmond when it appeared at Cornell University on March 18, 1964, published on Cornell 1964 . On April 4, 1964, she was recorded at the Town Hall Concert with the same line-up and renamed Praying With Eric for posthumous publication after the death of the involved saxophonist Dolphy . On the Paris live LP of the 1964 European tour that followed the New York concert, it is titled Meditations For Integration ( The Great Concert, Paris 1964 ), on the recording of the Wuppertal concert on the same tour as Meditation On A Pair Of Wire Cutters . He then played the composition regularly in concert in 1964 and recorded it twice on sound carriers - in San Francisco and at the Monterey Jazz Festival .

In the plate text for Mingus at Monterey , Mingus describes Meditations on Integration as a piece that was written for this time, when everyone was fighting against everyone else in the world: men, women, religious directions, people in general, skin colors. I felt that I was playing for God. Yes, now is the time when people come together and try to find their way to love with something that warms them and brings them together. At the concerts in the spring of 1964, Mingus made several announcements that he knew from Dolphy that there was something similar to the concentration camps in Nazi Germany in the southern United States. The only difference within the barbed wire is that there are still no gas chambers and crematoria. So he wrote the piece to get us to get wire cutters before anyone organizes guns.

Musically, the piece, based harmoniously in B flat minor , also reflects this message: The conventions are dissolved and new forms are found. In the 1964 versions, the usual division of labor in a jazz band has been turned on its head. The tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan takes on the accompaniment function during the presentation of the theme in the spring, while bowed bass and flute introduce the melody in unison (this is also similar in the version recorded in San Francisco in the summer; in Monterey, Mingus introduced the piece on bass, to introduce the theme with the flute while the big band does the bass riffs). In this piece, too, Mingus plays with the fact that a new integration always arises out of organized chaos. Conventionally arranged passages alternate with "chaotic parts". Mingus set a written melody against an improvised one, and guides the improvisations in parts by specifying usable tones. He alternates virtuously between bowed and plucked passages, is always present both as an accompanist and as a melody voice. From a repetition of the introductory theme, in the middle of the version played at the Monterey Festival, he turns into a duet of piano and bass. Then suddenly the bass part disappears and Buddy Collette starts playing the flute. Mingus switches to piano, plays four hands with Jaki Byard , then switches back to bass. Nobody knows how it will be. The piece is therefore always in motion with regard to the cast, which Mingus changes again and again and so surprises his fellow musicians when he suddenly calls out instructions - for example b flat - Jesus to Jane Getz at the end of the piece in San Francisco.

The tonal material and the rhythm are also in motion. Hardly a beat stays noticeable for a long time (longest in the alto solo by Charles McPherson at the beginning), melodies and tonal material change constantly . At the end of his musical analysis, the jazz journalist Hans-Jürgen Schaal comes to the conclusion that the title of Meditations on Integration is initially deceptive. As Mingus performed, the composition has little contemplation, there is hardly a piece of music that is more in motion. The restoration of the broken that this moving meditation leads to will not result in a flawless "masterpiece". The fulfillment of this American dream is always broken. A Mingus meditation creates a work that cannot be locked. In this capacity it proves its size, its integrity, its integrity.

This Mingus composition is also the (second) title track of the tribute album Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus by producer Hal Willner ; here she is played by Art Baron , accompanied by Bill Frisell , Marc Ribot , Don Alias , Henry Threadgill and others. a.

Selection discography

  • Charles Mingus: Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy: Cornell 1964. ( Blue Note Records 0946 3 92210 2 8) 2 CDs
  • Charles Mingus: Town Hall Concert (OJC, 1964)
  • Charles Mingus: The Great Concert, Paris 1964
  • Charles Mingus: Mingus In Europe, Vol. 1 (Enja 3049)
  • Hal Willner - Weird Nightmare- Meditations on Mingus (Columbia / Sony, 1992)

Literature / sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Linernotes: Mingus at Monterey (America Album 001-002)
  2. ↑ after Brian Priestley, Mingus. A Critical Biography. London 1985, p. 162
  3. ^ So the musical analysis of Priestley, Mingus (p. 162); Mingus, on the other hand, writes in the plate text for Mingus at Monterey that the piece was originally laid out in D minor and leads to E flat minor in Monterey
  4. ↑ Rachel Sales, Liner Notes for Charles Mingus Live at the Jazz Workshop (OJC-237)
  5. ↑ a b H.-J. Schaal: Meditations on Integration: Mingus and Politics