Tonight at Noon
| Tonight at Noon | ||||
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| Studio album by Charles Mingus | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Atlantic Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
5 |
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running time |
38:08 |
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Studio (s) |
Atlantic Studios, New York City |
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Tonight at Noon is a jazz album by Charles Mingus containing material from two different recording sessions on March 12, 1957 and November 6, 1961. The album was released as an LP on Atlantic Records in 1965 ; In 2004 it was re-released as a compact disc .
background
The album Tonight at Noon contained material from two sessions in different line-ups that Charles Mingus recorded for Atlantic in 1957 and 1961, respectively. The two tracks Tonight at Moon and Passions of a Woman Loved were created in 1957 when recording the album The Clown , with Jimmy Knepper , Shafi Hadi , Wade Legge , Charles Mingus and Dannie Richmond ; the other three compositions, Invisible Lady , Peggy's Blue Skylight and Old Blues for Walt's Torin , come from the Oh Yeah session of November 1961, in which Mingus played the piano and was represented on the double bass by Doug Watkins . The other musicians were Jimmy Knepper, Booker Ervin , Roland Kirk and Dannie Richmond.
Music of the album
The title track Tonight at Noon mixes hardbop with "sounds from the Middle East [...] Mingus plays ostinato bass figures, while pianist Wade Legge sets interesting bebo runs against it". Jimmy Knepper is the focus of the ballad Invisible Lady ; with his contribution he is reminiscent of the Ellington trombonist Lawrence Brown . The multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk is featured in Old Blues for Walt's Torin ; Peggy's Blue Skylight was recorded for the first time for a Mingus LP and was further developed by the bassist in later versions. The soloist is tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin . Passions of a Woman Loved contains "different moods and tempos with partly very free improvisation parts by Shafi Hadi."
Track list
- Charles Mingus: Tonight at Noon (Atlantic SD-1416 (US), SA 5019 (UK))
- Tonight at Noon - 6:00 am
- Invisible Lady - 4:51
- "Old" Blues for Walt's Torin [also Roland Kirk's Message ] - 7:57
- Peggy's Blue Skylight - 9:46
- Passions of a Woman Loved - 9:47
All compositions are by Charles Mingus.
reception
Thom Jurek only gave the album three stars in Allmusic and criticized the inconsistency of the material:
- “While the early session contained Mingus' approaches to the blues through European-influenced harmonic and melodic approaches, the later session, with its nocturnal elegance and spatial irregularities, turns out to be more like an exercise in Ellington avant-garde with ingenious harmonies that make room for lazy marches and gospel- tinged blues. [...] Despite the fact that this is a compiled album, it still contains some magical moments. "
- "While the former session features Mingus going for the blues via European harmonics and melodic approaches with hard bop tempos (particularly on the title track), the latter session with its nocturnal elegance and spatial irregularities comes off more as some kind of exercise in vanguard Ellington with sophisticated harmonies that give way to languid marches and gospel-tinged blues [...] Despite the fact that this is an assembled album, it holds plenty of magic nonetheless ".
The Mingus biographers Horst Weber and Gerd Filtgen found the album “not exactly a happy combination of pieces.” The ballad Invisible Lady is not very convincing ; while in Old Blues for Walt's Torin Roland Kirk shows "his original originality". “What is striking about all the pieces is that they smooth out the different levels of the recordings through individual solo performances.” This is the case in Peggy's Blue Skylight , where only Booker Ervin inspires. The highlight of the album for the authors (as well as for Thom Jurek) is the last track on the album, the almost ten-minute string-like Passions of a Woman Loved
On the occasion of the CD release, Joel Roberts gave a more positive review of the 2004 album in All About Jazz : "Although the two sessions have a different stylistic background, they fit together seamlessly and are more than just an arbitrary compilation of dusty outtakes." Most of them are Compositions on Tonight at Noon (with the exception of Peggy's Blue Skylight ) are hardly known and some would only appear at this point in the Mingus catalog, but this material is “definitely by no means second choice”. The author suspects that they fell victim to the limitations of the LP era and were perhaps too provocative compared to the material selected for the sessions at the time. “This is vital, enjoyable music.”
Outside of jazz, there was an appreciation for the title Tonight at Noon in the poem of the same name by Adrian Henri , which the poet Charles Mingus and the Liverpool band Clayton Squares dedicated.
Editor's note
The three tracks from the Oh Yeah session (1961) were used as bonus tracks on new editions of this album by Atlantic (8122-73748-2), Rhino Records (8122-73748-2) and Warner Strategic Marketing (8122-73748-2). released.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Horst Weber, Gerd Filtgen: Charles Mingus. His life, his music, his records. Gauting-Buchendorf: Oreos, undated, ISBN 3-923657-05-6 , p. 131 ff.
- ↑ Information about the album at Discogs
- ↑ Review of the album Tonight at Noon by Thom Jurek at Allmusic (English). Retrieved January 24, 2015.
- ^ Review of the album (2004) in All About Jazz
- ↑ http://www.discogs.com/Charles-Mingus-Oh-Yeah/release/2692342