Pithecanthropus Erectus (Mingus Album)

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Pithecanthropus erectus
Studio album by Charles Mingus

Publication
(s)

1956

Label (s) Atlantic

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

4th

running time

36:36 (CD)

occupation

production

Nesuhi Ertegün

Studio (s)

Audio-Video Studios, New York City

chronology
The Charles Mingus Quintet with Max Roach
(1955) 		Pithecanthropus erectus The Clown
(1957)

Pithecanthropus Erectus is the first jazz album by Charles Mingus , in which he points out the connection to be in previous years ausprobiertes in his "Jazz Workshop" new concept of a compositional framework with the free improvisation of his musicians.

Bulk

As Mingus describes in his Liner Notes, his experience with the Jazz Composers Workshop in 1953 had taught him that in jazz one had to get away from written out scores. Instead, he just wrote his compositions as a framework on “imaginary music paper” and then played his ideas to the session musicians on the piano until they were completely familiar with his interpretation and the scale and chord progressions of the composition.

The title piece Pithecanthropus Erectus , on which he has been working for a long time, describes, according to Mingus, the rise and fall of the (allegedly) first human Pithecanthropus erectus in four sentences : 1. Development ("evolution") towards an upright gait, 2. Superiority complex ) - Will to rule the world and others, 3. Descent ("decline"), 4. Complete destruction ("destruction") because of the inevitable self-emancipation of the enslaved and - here Mingus' psychological interests shine through - self-alienation of the enslaver (his "False security"). The subject in ABAC form is taken up by each of the soloists. At the end (“Destruction”) the interplay increases to a dissonant climax. The timbres change in various ways. The two pieces on the first page were the reason for many later listeners to antedate the beginnings of free jazz by several years.

The sequel A Foggy Day (in San Francisco) builds on Gershwin's composition A Foggy Day in London Town , but onomatopoeically describes a foggy day in San Francisco , including ship foggy horns, traffic noise, the stumbling of a drunk, police whistles and “that damned twelve o'clock whistle that used to wake me up ". The piece had already been recorded by Mingus 5 weeks earlier in Cafe Bohemia (The Charles Mingus Quintet and Max Roach , December 23, 1955, with Mal Waldron and partly Willie Jones) (as well as Love Chant) and also played it several times in his jazz workshop been; however, the soundscape spread out here was only hinted at there.

Profile of Jackie is one of Mingus' portraits of musicians, in this case by and for Jackie McLean, done by himself. It contains references to Chelsea Bridge and This Subdues My Passion .

The longest piece Love Chant is developed here in an "extended form" with alternating solos (also by Mingus), rhythmic layers and formal contrasts and shows once again the typical approach in a jazz workshop. Sometimes Waldron gives the change signals at the piano. Also Love Chant was in a live recording in shortly before Cafe Bohemia added.

The saxophonist JR Monterose (1927–1993) had the high point of his career here from today's perspective (although he later records as a leader for Blue Note Records ), and Jackie McLean, whom Mal Waldron Mingus had introduced himself to through his work in Jazz workshop, as he told Down Beat in 1974 , musically decisively developed (even if working with Mingus was not always very easy). The drummer Willie Jones is already replaced on the next LP The Clown (and on Tijuana Moods from 1957) by Dannie Richmond , with whom Mingus then formed a rhythm duo that got along almost blindly. The successful The Clown also confirmed Mingus's claim to be one of the leaders of the avant-garde in this album.

The original cover shows stick figures in the style of ancient cave paintings (by Curtice Taylor).

Track list

  1. Pithecanthropus Erectus (10:33)
  2. A Foggy Day (7:47)
  3. Profile of Jackie (3:07)
  4. Love Chant (14:56)

All compositions by Charles Mingus except A Foggy Day , which uses a Gershwin template.

Recorded January 30, 1956 at Audio-Video Studios, New York (recording engineers Tom Dowd, Hal Lustig). Alternate takes do not seem to exist (or were lost in the 1976 fire in the Atlantic warehouse).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mingus asked the musicians to break away from the bebop routines; Just a few weeks after the album was recorded, McLean and Mingus broke up after a fight provoked by Mingus accusing the saxophonist of just playing his old boot. He wanted to hear Jackie, not Charlie Parker . See Priestley, Mingus, p. 81.