Tijuana Moods
| Tijuana Moods | ||||
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| Studio album by Charles Mingus | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | RCA | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
5 |
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running time |
35:15 (LP) |
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| occupation |
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Bob Rolontz , Steve Backer (reissue) |
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Studio (s) |
RCA Victor's Studio A, New York City |
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Tijuana Moods is a jazz album by Charles Mingus recorded in 1957 but not released until 1962.
Prehistory of the album and accompanying circumstances
After a trio recording with Hampton Hawes and his drummer Dannie Richmond for Jubilee Records on July 9 and recordings under Jimmy Kneppers line for Mingus' music label Debut Records on July 10 In 1957 in the following weeks, his first album in stereo , which is also should be his first production for a bigger label.
During an appearance at a cinema concert in Greenwich Village in mid-July , the band leader tried , according to a report by Metronome , "new forms of improvisation with the jazz form". In addition to “The Clown” with the actor Jean Shepherd (1921–1999), he first performed “Tijuana Table Dance” with the flamenco dancer Ysabel Moran. During the following guest appearances in Washington, DC and at the first Great South Bay Festival on July 20, 1957 in Great River (Long Island) Mingus played for the first time publicly with the cast with which he recorded the album; Pianist Bill Triglia and Detroit trumpeter Clarence Shaw joined the band .
Contents of the album
Most of the pieces count as program music and together form a kind of concept album : It reproduces the impressions of a trip by Mingus with his drummer (and student) Danny Richmond to the Mexican border town to California Tijuana . Mingus wanted to forget the separation from his wife and manager Celia ("a very blue period in my life") and threw himself into the entertainment district - in his own words in competition with Richmond, for whom it was all fairly new (Mingus: "Danny lost - he was very hungry, I was starved ”). Richmond: Mingus wanted to be a gangster, a musician, a pimp, and a lover rolled into one. Mingus summarizes in his liner notes : "Tequila-Wine-Woman-Song-and-Dance".
Dizzy Moods is based on Dizzy Gillespie's Woody'n You from 1943 and, according to the liner notes, was sketched in the car by Mingus on his way to Tijuana in anticipation of what was to come.
Ysabel's Table Dance depicts a nightclub scene including (striptease) dancers, shown in the driving flamenco rhythm with castanets. The piece is based on a paso-doble figure over two harmonies: interspersed are free-jazz- like group improvisations , banging solos and unaccompanied rubato passages. The actual topic is only presented in the second half of the piece. Mingus makes his bass sometimes sound like guitars and violins (with a bow at the beginning).
According to Mingus, the short interlude Tijuana Gift Shop is reminiscent of a tapestry that he bought in a souvenir shop there.
Los Mariachis portrays the street musicians who follow the tourists and, in anticipation of tips, play the pieces they think they like - in this case, for example, a calypso number and (according to Mingus, a rather stiff) blues . Popular clichés are set against moments of sadness with satirical intent. In the opinion of the critic Hans Jürgen Schaal, this is "even today a huge, disturbing piece of music."
Flamingo is a swing standard on which Mingus in muted pace his great idol Duke Ellington his reverence turns and the liner according to his notes to evoke the memory of New York (the "wild city") in the distance. At the end Mingus lets the flamenco from Ysabel's Table Dance sound on the bass. Knepper and Shaw can be heard performing solos (Shaw's solo is specifically highlighted by Mingus in the liner notes).
On his 1962 liner notes, Mingus first pays his respects to his fellow musicians, whom he describes as one of the greatest musicians he has ever played with. First and foremost the trumpeter Clarence Shaw , whom he describes as the ideal musical “conversationalist” (“he knew when to be silent”), but could not find him even then (1962) and only refers to rumors that he was active as a hypnotist. Shaw took two more shots with Mingus in 1957, but then disappeared from the scene. He had only met Richmond a short time before - not a few weeks, as he writes, but for a good six months when he let him stand in for Willie Jones on drums (actually Richmond had been a tenor saxophonist up until then) in a club in the middle of the performance who allegedly could no longer follow the pace. Mingus found the ideal rhythm group partner in Richmond. They got along so well later that a quick eye contact on the stage was enough to understand how to control the improvisation framework. He also became a close friend of Mingus, who - as he happily admitted in an interview - "kept everything together".
Mingus was visibly proud of the album in 1962 ("This is the best record I ever made" as the headline in the liner notes, also confirmed by memories of his friend Nat Hentoff ).
Title of the album
- Dizzy Moods (5:47, alternate take 8:17)
- Ysabel's Table Dance (10:24)
- Tijuana Gift Shop (3:44, alternate take 4:39)
- Los Mariachis (10:18, alternate take 12:23)
- Flamingo (5:31, alternate take 6:37)
(According to RCA / BMG France 1994 (BM 720 - 74321257702) with alternate takes, except for Ysabel's Tabel Dance).
All compositions by Charles Mingus except Dizzy Moods , which is also attributed to Dizzy Gillespie, and Flamingo (E. Anderson, T. Grouya).
The pieces were recorded on July 18 ([1], [2], [4]) and August 6, 1957 ([3], [5]) in the RCA Victor Studios in New York; The sound engineer was Bob Simpson.
Edition history
The original was only published by RCA-Victor in 1962 (LSP 2533). Weber and Filtgen assume that RCA initially appeared to be too advanced the album; By 1962 the jazz world had changed completely and Mingu's work was also widely recognized. However, there may also have been contractual disputes.
The original album is (except [2]) partly "brutally cut" ( Ed Michel ) The album was reissued as Mexican Moods in 1979 at Camden / Pickwick. With the alternate takes (uncut, in the recorded length), the album was also released as New Tijuana Moods (Bluebird 5635-1-RB) on two LPs in 1986 (with an alternate take of 13 minutes for Ysabel's Table Dance ) original pieces have also been re-edited. A 2-CD edition on RCA (2001, Bluebird 09206-63840-2) contains further material in addition to these pieces, including broken takes; In addition, there is the Mingus text "A colloquial dream" spoken by the writer Lonnie Elder , which Mingus had the Afro-American actor Mel Stewart re-recorded in 1957 (as Scenes in the City ) ( A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry (Bethlehem 1957, Branford Marsalis named his debut album Scenes in the City 1983). The text reflects on the hardships of life in the big city of New York and the role of jazz as an escape. This re-release makes the original credits for Lonnie Elder easier to understand.
Reviews
The jazz critic Martin Williams wrote in the cover text that Mingus had set out to "transform his jazz into concert music". Werner Stiefele ( Rondo 2000) agrees and emphasizes that “the complex work goes well beyond the attempts at merging jazz and classical music that were undertaken in the Third Stream of the 1950s. It is committed to its jazz nature and is therefore a direct forerunner of works such as Wynton Marsalis ' postmodern ballet ›Citi Movement‹ ”. For Hans-Jürgen Schaal , the album is “a first triumph” of the close collaboration between Mingus and his drummer Danny Richmond and at the same time a document of the upheaval in Mingus's work: “The redefinition of unruly jazz archaicism. And at the same time pre-alarm for free jazz. ” Scott Yanow is of the opinion that“ this disturbing music belongs in every jazz collection because it presents one of the most beautiful hours of Charles Mingus ”. Ed Michel, who produced the New Tijuana Moods , emphasizes in the liner notes that it is clearly a "masterpiece".
Worth mentioning
The original cover shows a Mexican girl in her skirt in front of a jukebox. In the original, the album was also released under the name "Charlie Mingus" (instead of "Charles"), a confidentiality that Mingus did not appreciate at all (he himself preferred the address Mingus).
Hadi and Knepper stayed with Mingus for a total of six months; This was the front line of the band leader, which lasted longer than all previous jazz workshops Mingus'. Contrary to the credits, Hadi plays both alto (in Dizzy Moods ) and tenor saxophone.
In addition to the liner notes by Mingus (1962) and Martin Williams, who saw Mingus on his way "from jazz to concert music", there are also those by Nat Hentoff in the new edition of RCA.
In terms of the time of origin (not after publication), the album is between The Clown (recorded February / March 1957) and a trio recording with Hampton Hawes and Richmond (July 1957) on the one hand and East Coasting (also in August 1957 and with Shaw) and A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry (October 1957) on the other hand.
literature
- Charles Mingus: Beneath The Underdog . Nautilus, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3894014164
- Brian Priestley: Mingus: A Critical Biography , Quartet Books, London, 1982, ISBN 0-7043-2275-7
- Horst Weber , Gerd Filtgen: Charles Mingus. His life, his music, his records . Oreos, Gauting-Buchendorf, undated (1984), ISBN 3-923657-05-6 (with memories from Richmond)
- Werner Stiefele: Milestones of Jazz , review on rondomagazin.de
Web links
- Review by Hans Jürgen Schaal (2002)
- Review for Allmusic by Scott Yanow (English)
- Legacy Recordings (English)
References and comments
- ↑ The castanets in Ysabel's Table Dance are attributed to Dunlop; Ysabel Morel is mentioned in the credits for clapping her hands in flamenco during the recording. See Tijuana Moods 2001
- ↑ According to Mingus biographer Brian Priestley , the production of the album was part of an agreement with RCA that came about because Thad Jones , who was then under contract with the label, was responsible for two albums that were made in 1955 on Mingus' label Debut Records . had contributed. See B. Priestley. P. 83 f.
- ↑ See Brian Priestley, p. 83. Priestley points out that Mingus also played this piece at the festival; also Dizzy Moods . In another concert at the festival on July 21, 1957 he gave a solo performance of his " Haitian Fight Song " and accompanied the singer Blossom Dearie ; on the drums (!) sat Roy Eldridge .
- ↑ Priestley explains that the A part of the piece is written in 4/4 time and is based on the Gillespie original, which in turn is actually based on the tone sequences of Fats Waller's pieces “Blue Turning Gray” and “I've Got a feeling I'm Falling ”based; A new B-part in 6/4 time, which comes from Mingus, has been added. See Priestley, p. 84.
- ↑ On the alternate take, Richmond's drum solo, which was originally cut, can be heard in full.
- ↑ That was the name of the song only on the album. In live performances, it was, according to Priestley as Tijuana table dance played
- ↑ Priestley points out that the rhythm is comparable to what is heard on the classic recording of the trio by Red Norvo in Time and Tide . The harmonies are the seventh chords of E major and F minor
- ↑ Liner Notes for the new edition at RCA / BMG
- ↑ Legacy Recordings ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ So whole solos are missing.
- ↑ Information from Tijuana Moods 2001 BMG
- ↑ See B. Priestley, p. 85.
