Mingus at the Bohemia
| Mingus At The Bohemia | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live album by Charles Mingus | ||||
|
Publication |
||||
| Label (s) | Debut Records (Prestige, Fantasy) | |||
|
Format (s) |
LP, CD |
|||
|
Title (number) |
6th |
|||
| occupation |
|
|||
|
Studio (s) |
Cafe Bohemia New York City |
|||
|
||||
Mingus At The Bohemia is a jazz album by Charles Mingus . It was recorded live on December 23, 1955 at the New York club "Cafe Bohemia" and released by the musician's own label Debut Records . The other recordings of this live concert were published under the title The Charles Mingus Quintet + Max Roach .
The music
The pieces from Cafe Bohemia have the Jazz Workshop character so typical of Mingus , much more than the previous Period recordings ( Jazzical Moods from 1954) . The fact that a concert is designed as a workshop performance means, first of all, that nothing finished is delivered, but that experiments are carried out live on the stage; this is particularly important in the piece with the "guest star" Max Roach ( percussion discussion ). Mingus at the Bohemia captures the moment when Charles Mingus musically (after the Third Stream experiments of the Jazz Composers Workshop ) finds the musical identity with which most listeners of jazz identify him.
The first piece Jump Monk is dedicated to the pianist Thelonious Monk , but is not to be associated with the music of Monk: Charles Mingus wanted to express the dancing movements of the great individualist with his bass.
With Serenade in Blue , Mingus uses the bowed bass and thus achieves a dark tone.
The mentioned percussion discussion is a duet by Mingus with his guest star, the drummer Max Roach . Weber / Filtgen rated the breathtaking drum-bass duet as one of the most exciting recordings in African American music . In an expanded form (and in an arrangement for a ten-piece orchestra) it also became part of the epitaph suite by Mingus.
Work Song (not to be confused with the Nat Adderley composition) is intended to reflect the history of black people in the USA. George Barrow's saxophone takes on the role of foreman pushing people. In response, working noises mix with the crack of the driver's whip. Here elements of soul jazz become clear, as they were successfully developed at the beginning of the 1960s by Bobby Timmons and the Cannonball-Adderley- Quintet.
In Septemberly , Mingus interweaves two pieces (a method that he was to use again with Ellington motifs on Pre-Bird 1960): a romantic tenderly emerges from the bar jazz piece September in the Rain .
The record ends with the jazz standard " All the Things You Are " - here as All The Things You C Sharp , combined with elements from Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C # and Claude Debussy's Claire de Lune .
Track list
- Jump Monk (6:44)
- Serenade in Blue (5:57) (Gordon / Warren)
- Percussion Discussion (8:25)
- Work Song (6:16)
- Septemberly (Arr.Mingus - September in the Rain / Tenderly ) (6:55) (Warren / Dubin and Lawrence / Gross)
- All the Things You C Sharp ( All The Things You Are ) (6:47) (Kern / Hammerstein)
The compositions are by Charles Mingus (unless otherwise noted).
Edition history
These pieces appeared on the debut LP "Mingus At The Bohemia" (DEB 123) and were re-released as Prestige LP (P-24010) after the debut label ended. After Fantasy took over the prestige label , it was also circulated as a Fantasy LP (86002) under the title "Chazz" , then again in 1983 under the original title (Fantasy DEB-123, LP). It is now available on CD (OJC 045). The following alternate takes are also published there: 7. Jump Monk (11:38) 8. All The Things You C # (9:50).
Other titles of the "Bohemia" concert were
- A Foggy Day (5:35)
- Drums (5:34)
- Haitian Fight Song (5:24)
- Lady Bird (5:54)
- I'll Remember April (13:10)
- Love Chant (7:25)
and appeared on the subsequent LP The Charles Mingus Quintet + Max Roach (Debut, 1955) (Debut DEB-139), then Prestige (P-24010), Fantasy (F-600), as CD (OJC 440). The two records were also released together under Prestige P 24010 ("Charles Mingus" with "Charles Mingus Quintet Plus Max Roach", 2LP), but also as a Japanese double CD and under Fantasy / Carrere CA68.529 / 31 with the title "Charles Mingus "1983 as a 3LP set (together with" Right Now ").
The remaining pieces of the "Bohemia" session first appeared on a prestige album entitled "Charles Mingus" (HB 6042), and later with all other pieces in chronological order on the 12-CD compilation The Complete Debut Recordings 1951-1958 (Fantasy).
Literature and Sources
- Horst Weber , Gerd Filtgen: Charles Mingus. His life, his music, his records. Oreos, Gauting-Buchendorf, undated, ISBN 3-923657-05-6
- Marcus A. Woelfle: Liner Notes for Charles Mingus - 80th Birthday Celebration (Fantasy)
- Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Weber / Filtgen, p. 93
- ↑ G. Schuller, A Guide to Charles Mingus' Epitaph (Liner Notes to Epitaph CBS 1990), pp. 17f.
- ↑ See Mingus discography by Esa Ontonnen ; however, according to Ontonnen, Chazz refers to the record mentioned below