#Mingus Big Band

[jazzdailyblog]

Chris Potter: A Modern Jazz Virtuoso Redefining the Saxophone

Introduction: In the world of jazz, there are those who follow tradition and those who push its boundaries to new heights. Chris Potter, an extraordinary saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, falls into the latter category. With his technical brilliance, harmonic sophistication, and an unrelenting quest for innovation, Potter has earned a reputation as one of the most influential voices in…

[diceriadelluntore]

Storia Di Musica #281 - Mingus Big Band, Live At Jazz Standard, 2010

Chi e cosa è stato Charles Mingus? Le domande non sono così tautologiche come possono apparire. Nella storia dei grandi del jazz, porta agli estremi la ribellione culturale, l’esigenza di una riabilitazione personale, i problemi psichiatrici, una vitalità che molto spesso superava ogni eccesso nel cibo, nel sesso, nell’esternazione delle emozioni. Ma sopra ogni cosa Mingus è stato un genio creativo con pochi pari. Il burbero, scontroso, violento passa in secondo piano rispetto al musicista. È quello che successe poco dopo la morte, avvenuta nel gennaio del 1979: molti dei musicisti che avevano collaborato con lui, si strinsero intorno alla figura di Sue Mingus, la sua quarta moglie, e iniziarono a pensare a come omaggiare la sua musica. Tra l’altro, nonostante la debilitante malattia che lo stava progressivamente fermando, Mingus continuò a comporre e dettare musica, tanto che alla sua morte lasciò in eredità almeno 200 idee musicali tra spartiti, linee melodiche, idee sparse qua e là. Nello stesso anno della morte, si forma il primo nucleo di questo percorso di ricordo con la Mingus Dynasty, formata dai sessionisti che collaborarono con lui nell’ultimo periodo. Iniziarono a suonare concerti in giro per gli Stati Uniti prima, e nel mondo poi, garantendo a Mingus una nuova fioritura di notorietà, persino più sincera e ragionata rispetto a quella legata al suo strabordante personaggio. Sue costituirà una Fondazione, che oltre a celebrare la musica di Mingus, diventerà attiva nella formazione musicale e culturale, garantendo borse di studio ai ragazzi emarginati, legando il tutto ad uno dei punti centrali della parabola artistica di Mingus: il rispetto interrazziale e l’importanza della conoscenza per le minoranze etniche. Mingus Dynasty prende il nome dal titolo di un album del 1959, Mingus Dynasty, che contiene due classici mingusiani, Song With Orange ma soprattutto Gunslinging Bird, che stavolta fu davvero dedicata al grande Parker, e come titolo provvisorio aveva If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats. Nell’album del 1959 al trombone c’era Jimmy Knepper, all’epoca fido collaboratore di Mingus, che nonostante i due denti rotti che gli fece il Maestro e il conseguente processo, rimase sempre un suo grande amico. E Knepper fu il band leader di uno dei grandi live che la Dynasty ebbe presso il Teatro Boulogne-Billancourt di Parigi, l’8 Giugno 1988, racchiusi in due emozionanti cd (titolo Live at the Theatre Boulogne-Billancourt/Paris, Vol. 1 e 2). Ma personalmente credo che il ricordo più vero e sentito è stato quello che ha portato avanti l’evoluzione della Dynasty, la Mingus Big Band. Uno dei sogni di Mingus era di creare una Big Band sulla falsariga di quelle del suo mito Duke Ellington, e un po’ come successe allo stesso Ellington, a Glenn Miller o ai fratelli Tommy e Jimmy Dorsey, le cui musiche sono sopravvissute al loro creatori anche grazie alla continuazione delle big band, così è capitato pure indirettamente per Mingus. La Mingus Big band nasce nel 1991, formata da 14 elementi: il repertorio mingusiano viene riarrangiato, anche seguendo delle idee di Charles, in stile Big Band, che rimase il grande sogno inespresso in vita del grande contrabbassista. Il successo delle prime esibizioni è esaltante, e in pochi anni la Mingus Big band suona in tutti gli Stati Uniti d’America, e inizia anche acclamatissimi concerti in Europa, in Giappone, in Oceania. Nel 1997, viene ingaggiata per l’apertura di un nuovo locale, il Jazz Standard, situato nel quartiere Rose Hill di Manhattan, New York City. La band viene ingaggiata per due lunedì di seguito, ma il successo dei Mingus Mondays diviene così eccezionale che in pratica la band suona, quando non è in tour, tutti i lunedi fino a quando, causa Covid, il locale non chiude nel 2020. Ma la sera del 31 dicembre 2009, casualmente non un lunedì ma un giovedì, Sue Mingus decide di registrare l’esibizione della Big Band, e pochi mesi più tardi esce Live At Jazz Standard, nell’aprile del 2010. Quella sera fa parte della Big Band anche Randy Brecker alla tromba, che agli inizi degli anni ‘70 fu sessionista prediletto di Mingus. In scaletta, il meglio della produzione: Self-Portrait in Three Colors, Bird Calls, Open Letter To Duke, Cryin' Blues, la leggendaria Goodbye Porky Pie Hat, ma anche scelte minori come E's Flat Ah's Flat Too (aka "Hora Decubitus"), da Blues & Roots del 1959, New Now Know How e una finale Song With Orange da antologia. Band, pubblico, atmosfera sono così perfetti che il disco vince un Grammy Award come Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album nel 2011, e i Mingus Mondays sono ormai uno dei 5 eventi jazz migliori di tutta New York per i primi due decenni degli anni duemila. La Big Band continua a suonare in tutto il mondo, anche in Italia dove ha un folto seguito di appassionati, e quest’anno i Mingus Mondays sono tornati presso il Drom, un altro locale di New York, nell’East Village. Per celebrare il centenario della nascita di questo genio, pazzo e scalmanato, e davvero unico. Persino nella storia del jazz.

[georgeromerosanalcavity]

[ticketstubs-and-pits]

Mingus Big Band

@ Yoshi's, SF

went up with some band people, don't remember a ton but it would have been a good performance

added 9/26/2023

[jazzplusplus]

[topoet]

mingus Monk

Jazz runs the gamut from easy listening to complex challenging. There is the from the gut playing of John Coltrane to the intellectual work of Anthony Braxton. There are those who argue that ‘instrumental’ is pap – is Lawrence Welk big band or ‘instrumental’ pap? If it’s too popular does it lose creative credibility?  Mingus and Monk are two jazz masters who have never attempted to be popular &…

[hezigler]

"Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat."

Lester Young outside the Five Spot Jazz Club, the Bowery, 1958.

The first jazz musician I ever photographed, Lester Young performing at The Five Spot Café, on the Bowery, 1958. Now here was a quiet soul, someone who let his music speak for him. I took this shot outside before the show, Lester being greeted by an unknown admirer or so I believe. I've never been able to identify this person. The famous pork pie hat at a slight—and cool—angle.

     —Herb Snitzer

Photo: Herb Snitzer

[mara-and-its-the-same]

PSA TO EVERYONE

this is my official request that you all listen to Don’t Let It Happen Here by Charles Mingus

[kinsey3furry300]

An extremely dumb guid to “Which famous 60’s/70's Jazz man is that?”

1, Is it Piano lead or Brass lead? If piano go to question two. If brass question three.

2, Does the Pianist sound like he’s taken all the acid, or is there a guy making love to a clarinet?

Oh yeah: he’s taken all the acid alight. Is… is he okay? Thelonious Monk.

Oh yeah, some guy is going ham on a clarinet. Dave Burkbeck Quartet.

Neither of the above: Duke Ellington.

3, If brass lead: is it Louis Armstrong? If Yes, it’s Louis Armstrong. If no, question four.

4, Does the Trumpet player make you feel sad? Even, dare I say, Blue?

Almost? Chet Barker

Kind of? Miles Davies.

If no, question five.

5, Is the trumpet player trying to blow your face clean off? Like, actively trying to kill the first row of the audience? Dizzy Gillespie.

It’s brass led, but Sax not Trumpet.  

Okay, technically thats a woodwind but moving on, question 6, isolate the stings: is Charles Mingus doing what he’s actually paid to do in the back of the ensemble, or is he dicking around and seeing how far a man can take a double bass before his band-mates kill him?

Seems to be playing normally: Charlie Parker

He’s fucking around in F minor, and also that Bari sax is filthy! The Mingus Big band, with Ronnie Cuber on the Sax.

[hustlerose]

Sorry for the spam likes today. Favorite jazz album?? I saw a post on your blog that mentioned Mingus ah um. That’s either my fave or Birth of Cool (Miles Davis does do my favorite version of On Green Dolphin Street). Though both are kinda basic choices I want to expand my listening.

so i'm gonna give you a few albums (and album-adjacent things) with the caveat that i haven't heard most of what's out there ^_^ i'm just a casual fan

ornette coleman - the shape of jazz to come

this album is on another level. the multiple layers of brass crisscross each other, playing dissonant chaos, then they rip into solos that could melt charlie parker's fingers. the bass shreds and stumbles up and down some wild assortment of scales. the drums patter out a frantic rhythm that somehow ties everything together.

it shouldn't make sense, but it feels so alive. you'll catch quotes from flight of the bumblebee over rainy oceans of rhythm. herds of wild animals shuffle back and forth in a forest painted by jackson pollock. and then whoever's not soloing yells "woo! alright!"

it's not even my favorite ornette coleman recording. that honor goes to this youtube upload of a live show in germany, 1978. the bass intro, instantly picked up by the drummer, is so electric. the haunting melodies, borrowed from the rite of spring, are traded from sax to guitar. the whole band feels like they're operating on instinct. this is what a basquiat painting SOUNDS like. like a genius artist drawing with their non-dominant hand. LITERALLY coleman plays a violin left-handed at one point. it's incredible.

john coltrane - my favorite things

trane puts so much panache into this simple little pop song. the opening chords are heavy with drama. the groove is insanely tight. every time he plays the melody, it's got a new rhythm, to the point where he seems to be playing a game with the listener. "how many ways can i get you to feel this groove?" the song is melted, bent, and stretched like molten glass, in a 13 minute display of total virtuosity

and that's just track 1!!!! this album is timeless. every second is as fresh and vibrant as it was in 1961

herbie hancock - headhunters

herbie has always been at the cutting edge of jazz fusion. this is his definitive statement on funk

this album is intensely rhythmic, laying out catchy melodies over funk foundations. the whole band seems to just be having a blast. the grooves are often busy and hypermelodic, with no room to breathe as everyone jams at once. it's like an all-night house party in a bouncy castle full of confetti

if you're a fan of japanese jazz like caseopia, or jazz-influenced video game music, this album will feel shockingly familiar to you. its wildly creative synth work, uplifting and colorful chords, and eclectic sound palette are all DECADES ahead of their time.

where would we be without herbie? i'd wager the entire global music landscape would be different. from hip hop to big beat to drum n bass, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. hancock is a titan. the giants that raise us up are standing on his shoulders

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Obituary: The son who soared: Jeff Buckley

Date: June 6, 1997

From: The Guardian (London, England)

Publisher: Guardian News & Media

Document Type: Obituary

Byline: ADAM SWEETING

FEW ROCK business careers began more tantalisingly than that of Jeff Buckley, who has drowned in the Mississippi river, aged 30 (his body was found on Wednesday this week). In 1991, record producer Hal Willner, known for assembling imaginative, star-studded tributes to Charles Mingus and Kurt Weill, put together a tribute concert for Jeff's father, Tim Buckley, at St Ann's Church, Brooklyn, New York. Tim had died of a heroin overdose in 1975, aged 28, but his early death ignited a slow-burning musical legend. It was founded on his recorded legacy in which soul, blues and jazz influences mingled freely, the process stirred by his arrestingly elastic vocal style.

His son Jeff, born in California during Tim's brief marriage to Panama-born Mary Guibert, had always been ambivalent about his father. Tim left Mary when Jeff was six months old, and his son was brought up by his mother and stepfather during a peripatetic childhood. 'We moved so often I had to put all my stuff in paper bags,' Jeff recalled. 'My childhood was pretty much marijuana and rock 'n' roll.'His decision to participate in Willner's tribute event launched Buckley Junior as a new phenomenon on the New York music scene, and simultaneously affirmed his quasi-mythic credentials, particularly when he performed his father's song Once I Was. 'It bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I've never been able to tell him anything,' said Jeff. 'I used that show to pay my last respects.'

Thus launched in public, Buckley was rescued from a string of odd jobs by joining the avant-garde combo Gods & Monsters, which featured Pere Ubu's ex-bassist Tony Maimone and Captain Beefheart's erstwhile guitarist Gary Lucas. But it was more a loose group of individuals than a real band and Buckley quit in early 1992 to pursue a solo career.

He began performing at small Manhattan clubs, particularly the Cafe Sin-e, where record company executives and A&R men were soon arriving by the limo-full, waving chequebooks. 'I went into those cafes because I really felt I had to go to an impossibly intimate setting where there's no escape, where there's no hiding yourself,' he explained.

Buckley's remarkable voice (his most obvious inheritance from his father) and movie-star looks left nobody in doubt that he was a star in the making, though the eclecticism of his shows confused some listeners. Buckley would pluck songs out of the air as the mood took him. It might be something by Van Morrison, the Hollies or Big Star, or a tune made famous by Nina Simone or Mahalia Jackson.

With a hippie-esque suspicion of large corporations, he turned down several deals before signing with Columbia at the end of 1992, apparently because he knew and trusted the label's A&R man Steve Berkowitz. The company previewed their new acquisition with a live EP, Live At Sin-e, following which Buckley travelled upstate to Bearsville to start work on his debut album, Grace.

The disc was released in 1994 to instant critical adulation. The sleeve pictured Buckley clutching a microphone and looking poetically dishevelled, while the music inside was a cornucopia of rockers, ballads, hymns and even a bold rendition of Benjamin Britten's Corpus Christi Carol, by no means standard rock 'n' roll fare. His voice was wild, passionate and sensual. If his music was hard to describe in a soundbite, it was bursting with hidden depths and infinite potential. Grace won Buckley the Best New Artist award from Rolling Stone magazine in 1995.

Buckley's inquisitiveness and musical ambition earned him acceptance across a broad spectrum of fellow performers. Elvis Costello brought him over in 1995 to perform at London's Meltdown Festival, where he easily held his own among string quartets and jazz ensembles, and last year he featured on Patti Smith's comeback album, Gone Again. He was also a fan of Eastern music, particularly the Islamic devotional Qawwali songs of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Buckley had been in Memphis since February, recording new material. He decided to go swimming in the Mississippi, fully clothed and carrying his guitar, but was apparently pulled under by the wash from a passing tug.

Jeff Buckley, rock singer, born August 1, 1966; died May 29, 1997

[delamity]

I've been rereading my fic to get more inspo to write recently and i've discovered so many easter eggs that I've left for myself. Here are some of my favorites

Y/N's mug literally has a robin on it. haha.

The Riddler owes Y/N a mug... I haven't forgotten

After listening to hold music for an hour, she's humming the same tune in the shower when she gets home

When first speaking to Red Hood, Y/N mentions her boss's last name is Mingus. As in Charles Mingus. As in Mingus Big Band. Who has a Grammy Nomination for their album Gunslinging Birds...

It's no longer the case, but originally Y/N's parents were going to be A.R.G.U.S. or some other government metahuman org. but that storyline got scrapped. the references are kinda everywhere in the early story

when meeting Dick in the elevator for their meeting, he says "We all need to be humbled sometimes," like the news headline

Bruce Wayne has Alice in Wonderland and 1001 Riddles to Fool Your Friends on his office bookshelf.

Y/N says the line "You better come get me before I get punched in the face in Aparo Park" which is a reference to when that guy was punching women in the face in Times Square

every time flowers are mentioned they came from someone anf mean some (hours of flower meaning research lol)

there are so many more but they're like directly related to plot or comic references

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Joni Mitchell - The Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980)

Deciding too much is better than not enough, Joni Mitchell took the former tack on Vol. 4 of her ongoing Archives series.

Covering the 1976-1980 period spanning Mitchell’s Asylum Records releases Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mingus and Shadows and Light, this seven-hour, six-disc box set bogs down with some poorly recorded solo performances culled from Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue (“Jericho,” “Edith and the Kingpin”) and the 1979 Coalition Rally Against Nuclear Power (“Big Yellow Taxi”) alongside some awkward full-band arrangements (“Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow”) of brilliant numbers. These moments are historically significant to be sure; however, do not merit repeated spins.

Fortunately, such examples are scattered throughout what is otherwise gold as Mitchell, under the influence of Charles Mingus and others, dived deeply into her jazz phase and shared studios and stages with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Don Alias, Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorious. Alias, Metheny and Pastorious are each featured on live solo pieces, with Pastorious’ “Third Stone from the Sun” from Aug. 25, 1979, being particularly stunning in its virtuosity and musicality.

Mitchell still had some folkie in her during this period, though, as she revisits such earlier compositions as “For Free” and “A Case of You,” among many others on concert recordings spanning the Asylum Years. But when she pairs the soundalike “Coyote” and “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,” Mitchell suggests she really did her most-enthralling work as a jazzer.

For those who don’t have what amounts to nearly a full workday to devote to Vol. 4, Sound Bites recommends diving into discs 3, 4 and 5 first to experience the glory of Mitchell’s respective Hejira demos and Don Juan’s and Mingus sessions. Each disc also includes on-stage and in-studio recordings; branch out from here.

Grade card: Joni Mitchell - The Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980) - B+

12/4/24

[jazzplusplus]

1991 - Jazz sur son 31 - Autour de Mingus - Toulouse (and surrounding towns)

Aldo Romano, Betty Carter, Irakere, Jack DeJohnette Special Edition, Mingus Epitaph, Big Band 31, Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter Quartet, Lou Bennett trio, Guy Lafitte Quartet, ...

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Unrehearsed Perfection 1998 Jazz / Bop / Hard Bop / Smooth Jazz / Post-Bop

Some of you folks may find this a bit hard to believe, but as someone who never drinks any coffee themselves, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times in my life that I've actually stepped foot inside of a Starbucks. And yet, through some kind of osmosis, I was still somehow ambiently aware of just how integral music had become to their own business model and brand in the 90s, as they pumped out a constant stream of exclusively-sold CDs that matched what was in rotation over their very own speakers at the time.

And it'd all apparently started at some point in the late 80s, when they were still just a small Seattle chain, and had hired a former record store owner named Timothy Jones, who'd just decided that he needed a change in his own life and was then given the keys to manage his own favorite nearby coffee spot across the way from his old record shop. By the time Jones had arrived, each Starbucks was being sent a different four-hour cassette tape of classical music each month to play, and as someone who'd spent his entire life around music himself, he became the store's curator for those tapes. Without anyone's knowledge, though, Jones proceeded to diversify Starbucks' musical programming, and eventually expanded into jazz, reggae, and blues too. And with this change then came the inevitable question from customers, "do you guys sell any of this music that you play here?"

And at first they didn't, but by 1995, they had started to, with their first ever release, Blue Note Blend, which had initiated their original run of jazz compilations too. Within less than a month, this album had managed to sell 50,000 copies across Starbucks' 500 stores, which then naturally led to the vast expansion of their own serious music hustle that saw them releasing CDs on a consistent basis well into the 2010s.

And there were certainly bumps along the way too. At a certain point, beyond just selling nicely curated compilations of classy coffeehouse ambiance, they'd decided to take things a step or two further, and haphazardly got themselves more directly involved in the record business, which ended up resulting in a lot of anodyne, exclusive, unwanted, contemporary crap from beloved legends who should've known better. Even Sonic Youth put out a song exclusively through Starbucks once 😆.

And eventually, as the returns on CDs continued to diminish, and streaming became peoples' typical avenue for listening consumption, Starbucks dropped their CD-selling angle and their record label antics altogether and decided to partner with Spotify in the mid-2010s.

But as we now go back in time to their late 90s musical heyday, here's one of the greatest classic jazz compilations that they had apparently ever put out, Unrehearsed Perfection, which may've come off as a somewhat random assortment to the casual listener, but as its title indicates, was actually pretty uniquely thematic, as it consisted solely of recordings from the catalog of the legendary Impulse! Records that'd somehow been made in only one, single, miraculous take.

So on here, we've got a whole host of legends: Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, twice—who himself played an integral role in the early success of Impulse! with A Love Supreme—Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Milt Jackson, McCoy Tyner, and Charles Mingus.

And while most of these selections seem to match that idyllically cozy, warm, and familial 90s Starbucks aesthetic, it's Mingus' own "II B.S.," off of his classic 1964 album, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus, that serves as the big exception here, as it starts from just Mingus' own lonely double-bassline, but progressively expands into a beast of its own making, with sharp, addled lead horn action among an actively large backing band that is surely to take every coffee drinker's focus off of whatever else they're doing and tune their ears to this masterpiece instead 😌.

So, you may not really think about it, but with people digging the ambiance that Starbucks had provided as they rapidly expanded all across the US throughout the 90s and 2000s, they also sort of somewhat quietly managed to become kind of a big pop cultural music staple with their varied litany of CD offerings too. And before today, I had never listened to any of the many compilations that they had put out over the years, but if this CD itself is any indication, then it's easy to see why music became such a focal point of their business, because the selection job that was done by their very own former-Seattle-record-shop-owner-turned-store-manager here, Timothy Jones, was definitely top-tier👏.

Starbucks has kind of grown into a gross, impersonal behemoth like all large, ubiquitous chains more or less inevitably seem to do, but their idea to sell more than just coffee and pastries in that pivotal mid-90s moment definitely went a long way towards endearing themselves to folks in more lasting ways than just being a dime-a-dozen coffee shop ever could. People deriving pleasure from a restaurant business in a way that doesn't actually involve food or drink is not something that seems to organically happen very often, but you have to think that Starbucks' CD venture was akin to what a business like McDonald's had managed to pull off by putting collectable toys in their very own Happy Meals. Get people to think fondly of your business beyond your main selling point, and you've got some serious loyalty!

OK, that's more than enough positive big business spin from me today 😅. Shop local whenever you can so that the money you spend can circulate within your own community for a longer period of time, but don't hate something good that a big business might incidentally end up doing, like putting out quality CDs like this one! ✌️

Highlights:

McCoy Tyner - "Caravan" Duke Ellington - "Limbo Jazz" Johnny Hartman - "Ain't Misbehavin'" Oliver Nelson - "Stolen Moments" Diana Krall - "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" John Coltrane - "Acknowledgement" J.J. Johnson & Kai Winding - "I Concentrate On You" Benny Carter & His Orchestra - "Body and Soul" Charles Mingus - "II B.S." Milt Jackson Quartet - "Paris Blues" Sonny Rollins - "Blue Room"