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MINGUS BIG BAND So-called "ghost" orchestras, the bands of departed leaders who continue to tour and record the music made famous by that particular leader, are generally iffy affairs. The bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie are perhaps the best known of these, and it is questionable whether either contributed much in the way of posthumous insight into the music of their leaders. One reason for this is the very nature of repertory—the "repetition" of that which has already been done. The Mingus Big Band stands out as an exception to this rule. Organized and spearheaded by Sue Graham Mingus, the bassist/composer's widow, and and music director Alex Foster, the Mingus Big Band differs for a few reasons. First, much of Mingus' music is not familiar to even a fairly well informed jazz audience and almost all of it is woefully under recorded. In addition, the level of musicianship is necessarily very high in order to perform Mingus' music well. In her brief liner notes, Sue Mingus notes the removal of what was to be the title track of the disc, "Story of Love" due to its less-than-stellar arrangement."We're snobs here, at the Mingus Big Band—such demands and expectations fuel the music and insure its traditions and its energy." Thanks to such "snobbery" Mingus' groundbreaking music will surely survive until such time as it is no longer so far ahead of its time.
Mingus was much concerned with love, and it seems incredible that no one has previously created such a collection as Tonight At Noon…Three or Four Shades of Love previously. Listening to Mingus' compositions is truly like hearing the history of jazz. He could write with the rococo influence of New Orleans marching bands or the music of the circus, create voicings that made a six or eight piece group sound like the Duke Ellington Orchestra, emulate the sensuous fury of the flamenco dancer or the terror of the lonely man suddenly confronted with death. Yet it was all so original, so unlike what anyone else did or was doing. "Everything I do is Mingus" he said, and there could be little doubt of the truth of the statement. The music here is often balladic and lush, but it also outlines the darker sides of human passions, the dangerous balancing act that represents this most unique of human emotions. So powerful is love that it can create daytime at night. The work on this disc opens a window onto a segment of Mingus' repertory that is not often explored, and that alone makes this recording unique among the many that will be released this year. "Love Is A Dangerous Necessity", the album's opener, is arranged, as are many of the compositions here, by Sy Johnson. Voicings are fleshed out in a way that was not generally possible for Mingus due to the restrictions on the size of his groups because of economic considerations. Randy Brecker and Craig Handy provide the brief solos as well as a turn by drummer Jonathan Blake. The two tracks that follow, "Noon Night" and "Tonight At Noon" are quite different compositions. "Noon Night", arranged by Gunther Schuller, is a gorgeous ballad featuring tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake, a recent winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. Blake's work here is reminiscent of Johnny Hodges' playing of some of Ellington's ballads, despite the fact that he's playing tenor sax. "Tonight At Noon" begins with some group improvisation before taking off at a furious pace with Alex Sipiagin taking the trumpet solo and Alex Foster providing alto sax pyrotechnics. "Eclipse" begins with beautiful guitar work by Adam Rogers before shifting into a delicate samba that features an unlikely bassoon solo from Michael Rabinowitz. Actually, all of the tracks on the first half of the album with the exception of the opening "Love Is A Dangerous Necessity" feature the Charles Mingus Orchestra, a group that augments a basic eight piece band with bassoon, bass clarinet, French horn, and guitar. The orchestral instruments add a different timbre to the compositions and allow them to be heard in a new light. The fifth track on the album and the last to utilize the Orchestra is "Invisible Lady" with vocals and lyrics written by Elvis Costello. Costello might seem an unlikely choice as a collaborator for Mingus' work, but he actually seems quite well suited to the task. Like many of his generation, Costello grew up listening to popular bands led by Joe Bushkin and Joe Loss on British radio. His father was a musician as well, a trait shared by Costello's fellow British new wave rocker, Joe Jackson. In addition, Costello has worked with Chet Baker and composed in a variety of styles including classical chamber music. Costello is a master with words, and certainly his sometimes dour views of life and love superimposed over a basically romantic nature mesh well with what one imagines Mingus to have been like. The lyrics to "Invisible Lady", like much of Costello's best work, hint at dark film noire activities and romantic intrigue, but the "chorus" also hint at the singer's feelings of desertion by his muse: "Return to me Invisible lade/Where are the rewards for all the promise I made? /Oh where have you gone? /Who on earth do I have to thank? /The sheet below is blank." He picks up well on Mingus' flashes of melodrama and like the composer stubbornly refuses to fill in the picture too much or provide us with any easy answers. Of course, Costello is not the only popular musician to take on the music of Charles Mingus. Joni Mitchell worked with the composer very near the end of his life, when he could no longer play or compose—he sang the music for "Sweet Sucker Dance" into a tape recorder. It is a beautiful melody, and Seamus Blake plays it here with all the vulnerability and hope that it requires. Though Mitchell's lyrics are not present on this recording, one cannot help but see a portrait of Mingus in them: "We're dancing fools /You and me /Tonight it's a dance of insecurity /It's my solo /Blue way / Shadows have the saddest things to say." Reportedly it was Mitchell's epic orchestral piece "Paprika Plains" from Don Juan's Reckless Daughter that first caught Mingus' attention and inspired him to work with her, but one cannot help but feel that Mitchell's bittersweet attitude towards love, reflected ceaselessly in her lyrics, made her a perfect collaborator for him. Of the remaining performances "Passions of a Woman Loved" gets the Sy Johnson treatment. The piece is driven by tempo changes and a series of excellent solos. "Devil Woman" is an all-out blues with a raunchy vocal turn by trombonist Ku-umba Frank Lacy, and reminds us of Mingus' profound gospel and blues influence, something that is often overlooked in the race to discuss his modern harmonies and unusual instrumental voicings. "Love's Fury" is a serene ballad led by Ronnie Cuber on baritone sax, an instrument made into a romantic vehicle by the late Harry Carney. That leaves a performance of roughly the first half of Mingus' masterpiece, "Black Saint & Sinner Lady", which has gone unrecorded for the past forty years. Not only that, but it has not been widely performed, either. Imagine if Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy" suffered a similar fate! The compositions of Charles Mingus would make a perfect program or series of programs for Jazz at Lincoln Center (Wynton Marsalis, are you listening??). The funeral march-like section beginning at about six and a half minute in, with gutbucket trombone, plunger muted trumpet, and bluesy piano building to a crescendo, is as brilliant as anything composed in the jazz idiom. This excerpt from the work is very well done and performed, but it should whet the listener's appetite for the original recording. And that's as it should be. While the Mingus Big Band remains the most impressive big band performing today it's a testament to Mingus himself that an album such as Tonight At Noon can only inspire one to dig deeper into the man's musical legacy, a legacy that continues to provide much-needed impetus to the current jazz scene and still acts as a thorn in the side of complacency.
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