Mingus Dynasty
| Mingus Dynasty | ||||
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| Studio album by Charles Mingus | ||||
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| Label (s) | Columbia | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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Studio (s) |
Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City |
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Mingus Dynasty is a jazz album by Charles Mingus that was recorded and released in 1959. The title of the album is based on a play on words with the Ming Dynasty . It is the first album in the 1950s on which Mingus recorded some of his compositions in a larger tape format.
The music
Mingus Dynasty (CL 1440) was after Mingus Ah Um the second album for Columbia Records ; it contains recordings in two overlapping casts. In addition to the “permanent staff” of the Mingus Band, Don Ellis played on the trumpet and Maurice Brown and Seymour Barab on the cello on November 13th ; alternating the flautist and saxophonist Jerome Richardson, the tenorist Benny Golson, the vibraphonist Teddy Charles Cohen and the trumpeter Dick Williams. Contrary to what is stated on the cover of the original LP, the Dutch pianist Nico Bunink also plays in one of the pieces ( New Now, Know How ) .
The piece Slop first took shape on a 1958 Mingus album of poetry readings by Langston Hughes when Mingus adapted it for a television ballet production called Frankie & Johnny .
Gunslinging Bird was originally entitled "If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger ..."; With its accelerations, it is very cleverly laid out, especially rhythmically.
Diane shows the more lyrical, friendlier side of Charles Mingus and is dedicated to his partner at the time, Diane Dorr-Dorynek, who also condensed his explanations for him and thus (as in Mingus Ah Um ) was involved in the original liner notes. The piece has strong references to modern art music and only develops into a jazz piece with improvisations in the second part.
Despite his eccentric attitudes, Mingus was repeatedly asked for TV commissioned productions. That's how the song With Orange came about for a CBS drama called A Song With Orange In It .
Things Ain't That What They Used To Be and Mood Indigo express Mingus' admiration for Duke Ellington .
Far Wells, Mill Valley dedicated Mingus to a friend, the painter Francis Taylor, who lived in Mill Valley . The exotic mood created by Richardson's flute playing over the group's rich riffs reveals Mingus' talent for discovering unusual timbres and arranging them.
New Now, Know How is a bop theme with the restlessness of Lennie Tristano's musical ideas .
Track list
- Slop - 4:39 and 6:14
- Diane - 7:31
- Song of Orange - 4:14 and 6:47 respectively
- Gunslinging Bird - 3:58 and 5:12 respectively
- Things Ain't What They Used to Be - 4:25
- Far Well, Mill Valley - 6:14 am
- New Now, Know How - 3:01 or 4:12
- Mood Indigo - 8:15
- Put Me in That Dungeon - 2:53
All compositions are by Charles Mingus, except 5. Things Ain't What They Used To Be by Duke Ellington and 8. Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington, Irving Mills and Barney Bigard .
Pieces 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 were recorded on November 1, 1959, and pieces 1, 5, 8 and 9 on November 13, 1959. Tracks 1, 3, 4, 7 are heavily shortened on the original LP. Some uncut versions were first released on the double LP Nostalgia At Time Square. The Immortal published 1959 Sessions (1979).
New editions of Mingus Dynasty contain the 10th piece, the composition Strollin ' recorded on November 1st (which corresponds to Nostalgia in Times Square , but was provided with a song text by George Gordon), on which Bunink takes over the piano and Honi or . Honey Gordon sings.
Publications among other titles
Columbia partially marketed the record together with the forerunner Mingus Ah Um in the double album Better Git In Your Soul . The two records and the Alternate Takes (which were originally released under the title Nostalgia At Time Square ) were then released in 1998 in a 3-CD box as The Complete 1959 Columbia Recordings .
Pieces 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 were first published on CD under the title Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife (1988); the longer versions of the pieces were chosen. On the 2003 Columbia CD with the actually unique title 1959 (Columbia France) are the (abridged) tracks 1, 3, 4, 7 with some tracks by Mingus Ah Um and a version of The Shoes Of The Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Sleepers (allegedly from September 23, 1959, but the cast matches that of the recording from September 23, 1971) and a version of the composition Please Don't Come Back From The Moon (allegedly from March 6, 1959 ) conducted by Gunther Schuller , but with - if mentioned at all - the musicians of the epitaph recording from 1989, only mixed more transparently). The same compilation was released in 1996 under the title Charles Mingus - This is Jazz 6 on Sony / Legacy .
literature
- Horst Weber , Gerd Filtgen: Charles Mingus. His life, his music, his records . Oreos, Gauting-Buchendorf, undated, ISBN 3-923657-05-6
- Chris Albertson : Liner Notes for Mingus Dynasty (Columbia)
Individual evidence
- ↑ According to Mingus biographer Brian Priestley , who wrote an additional text accompanying the 1998 CD edition, Mingus' nickname as a teenager was "Ming". The cover picture shows the bassist as a Chinese dynast and he was "quite happy to go along with the art director's ideas for the album cover."
- ^ As stated in the cast list of the 1998 CD edition and the discography of the Charles Mingus Discography Project ; the commented Internet discography, on the other hand, questions the participation of Bunink, who also swapped the piano chair with Hannah on the Alternate Take of New Now , as noted in the cast list for Mingus Alternate Takes (CK 6514).
- ^ Charles Mingus: Complete 1959 Recordings
- ↑ See track list with a clever release policy: “Columbia has managed to turn two albums into five CDs. (It also means that the claim, "first time on CD in unedited form," is not true of the four tracks used on SHOES, despite claims to the contrary.) But bigger questions linger ... and have done so since 1979, when Columbia first released some of these "unedited" tracks (the "unedited" version of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is the only track not on the 1979 double-LP). The biggest question is why Mingus edited these recordings originally. " Charles Mingus: Complete 1959 Recordings
- ↑ The woodwinds, including the soloists George Adams , John Hicks , Karl Berger and John Handy, are simply omitted from the cast list on SMM5096252!