Charles Mingus Music

Charles Mingus is usually known for his wild, soulful and avant-garde compositions. "East Coasting" is mellow by comparison, but still cooks on a musical level. The Mingus touches are still there, the trombone, drummer Danny Richmond (who was so essential to the Mingus sound in Charles' Atlantic recordings) and of course the dark emotional undercurrent looms large, too. The personnel are Mingus regulars, except for pianist Bill Evans, who would not be described as "soulful" in the traditional sense, but his introverted and sensitive style meshes well with Mingus' music. His playing on "West Coast Ghost" (the album's stand-out track) and "Celia" are just some instances of Evans' ability to understand an artist's musical vision and play accordingly in his own beautifully original style.

As for the title of my review, I say Hipster-Style Jazz because "East Coasting" sounds like the prototypical 1950s "Hip Jazz" recording. It's like something one might hear in an attic converted to a bedroom where an artist or lonely soul might live. It's what a lot of people might believe Jazz would or should sound like. Highly recommended to Jazz lovers and perhaps more importantly- to young people who've just been blown away by Kerouac's novel "On the Road" and have become interested in exploring Jazz. "East Coasting" will allow them to get a taste of lost creative America.

I found this album by accident at a mall music store in the bin for CD's that are specially ordered and then not picked up. I paid [a small amount of money]and found an outstanding piece of music that is still a CD that finds a lot of time in my player.

The opening cut, "Memories of you" is one of my all-time favorites to lay back and listen to. It is an almost haunting rendition.

It is not neccesarily the same style you would find on other Mingus records, but definitely worth picking up!

From the GQ cover photo to the laid-back sound of Mingus' band, it is remarkable to think that this is the basic group of musicians that would later go on to record Mingus Ah Um just 2 years down the road. The hard-bop style of the period (1957) is displayed nicely here by Mingus and his cohorts. This could honestly pass for a Blue Note recording of the time, it is that much a blueprint for the genre. I had to pinch myself a few times for thinking that someone had secretly replaced the CD with a Miles Davis album.

Not that any of it is bad, mind you. Just after hearing the angularities and fire of other sessions, this comes off as being a surprise. There are still some instances of the hallmark Mingus harmonies and hard-turns, but hearing them nestled amongst this quietly unassuming stock jazz is... well you can decide for yourself. Even without the strident urgency of his well-known stuff, I still like it.

This record isn't usually mentioned when people discuss Charles Mingus -- granted, his complex discography makes it easy to overlook quite a few notable sessions -- and that's a shame because "East Coasting" is an excellent, energetic, and joyful recording. The snappy title cut and the gorgeous treatment of the standard "Memories of You" are worth the price of admission alone. This obscure gem is not just for completists -- it's prime Mingus. Check it out!

...the more I love this album. This is not typical Mingus recording. However, it is classic bop. Incredible tight and smooth play by all the musicians involved. The title track "East Coasting" is especially good.

If you were putting together your list of 50's-60's jazz guys who should've played with Charles Mingus, you might not put the calm and cool Bill Evans on that list. Surprisingly, he played with Mingus on this record before he became a little better known. Despite the possible mismatch, Bill Evans sounds fine, though he's playing rather softly.

"Memories of You" starts the CD with a pretty melody and a nice trombone solo by Jimmy Knepper. This song sets the mood for the CD, it's nice, but you're liable to miss a few things unless you turn it up and listen carefully. "East Coasting" is a faster track, it has a little of Mingus's earthy flavor. "West Coast Ghost" has a wailing quality that Mingus excels at. "Celia" is another pretty one. "Conversation" is bluesy, but doesn't feel like it gets off the ground to me. "51 St. Blues" has the start of a good melody, but the quick triplets in it make it feel like the band is forcing the Mingus flavor.

It's pretty good, but why 3 stars? Just to differentiate it from the better Mingus stuff. If this were Joe Schmoe, saxophonist, I'd probably give it 4 stars. For the prospective buyer, I'd work my way through the better-regarded Mingus CD's first, then pick this up later.

It can be difficult accounting for the Mingus between the Massey Hall Bird concert and the Mingus of "Mingus Ah Um." Much of the 50s Mingus on record sounds experimental and at times even academic and cerebral. Although listeners familiar with the later more visceral and political Mingus will find "East Coasting" comparatively tame, it's nonetheless an enjoyable album by perhaps as cohesive an ensemble as the bassist would ever have. Knepper, Hadi, Shaw and Richmond turn in strong performances, and Bill Evans is no less than letter perfect on each of his turns as well as critical to the cohesion of the ensemble. Mingus keeps all of the individual contributions short while denying himself any solo opportunities. Perhaps a lesson to all garrulous bass players by the most influential of them all.

Charles Mingus is usually known for his wild, soulful and avant-garde compositions. "East Coasting" is mellow by comparison, but it still cooks on a musical level. The Mingus touches are there; the trombone, drummer Danny Richmond--who was so essential to the Mingus sound in Charles' Atlantic recordings-- and of course the dark emotional undercurrent looms large, too. The personnel are all Mingus regulars, except for pianist Bill Evans, who would not be described as "soulful" in the traditional sense, but his introverted and sensitive style works well with Ming's music. His playing on "West Coast Ghost" (the album's stand-out track) and "Celia" are two examples of Evans' ability to understand an artist's musical vision and play accordingly in his own beautifully original style.

As for the title of this review, it fits because "East Coasting" sounds like the prototypical 1950s Jazz recording. It's something one would hear in an attic converted to a bedroom where an artist or lonely soul might live. It's what a lot of people might believe Jazz would or should sound like. Highly recommended to Jazz lovers and perhaps more importantly- to young people who have just been blown away by Kerouac's novel "On the Road" and have become interested in exploring Jazz. "East Coasting" will allow them to get a taste of lost creative America.

Charles Mingus was one of the great jazz composers and bassists. His career began with stints in the bands of Kid Ory and Louis Armstrong in the early `40s when he was barely out of his teens. He went on to become a monster in the jazz world, both as a musician and as a larger-than-life personality known for his anger at racial injustice and his one-man war with the music industry.

His 1959 masterpiece, Mingus Ah Um, is an essential in any jazz collection, and Pithecanthropus Erectus, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady are also required listening. East Coasting, recorded in August, 1957, is not as well known, but its resurrection as part of Shout! Factory's reissue program of classic albums from the catalog of the long defunct Bethlehem record label has its share of masterful moments, compositionally and in its arrangements, that should bring it a deserved reevaluation and overdue recognition.

Many of the standard Mingus musical tricks are on display here, from the finely crafted melodic statements to the free-flowing group improvisations. "Celia" foreshadows "Self Portrait in Three Colors" on Mingus Ah Um, the title track cooks with fine-tuned bop precision, and "West Coast Ghost" purrs with echoes of Ellington but with that cross-horn interplay so distinctive to the bassist's writing. The opening harmonies of "Conversation" are almost Oliver Nelson-ish, but devolve soon enough into the trademark phrase trading commonplace in Mingus' music.

The sextet lineup includes Mingus stalwarts Jimmy Knepper on trombone and Dannie Richmond behind the drums, while the piano chair is occupied by Bill Evans just months before he joined Miles Davis for what would be a seminal but short lived partnership ultimately yielding Kind of Blue. --Jim Newsom

Originally published in Port Folio Weekly - January 10, 2006
Copyright 2006 Port Folio Weekly. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

I am really disappointed that I spent a nickel on this piece of jumbled noise called a CD. Too bad I can't send it back.

The first time I heard this music, I knew it was something special, out of the ordinary. These are the great compositions that Mingus left after his death to be played as his "epitaph," and they are complex and challenging to the listener.

Gunther Schuller does a superb job of conducting this complex score and capturing a true Mingus feeling despite the leader's unavoidable absence. If you compare the original Town Hall performances of these works, conducted by Mingus himself, to these recreations, you will be amazed by how similar they are in feel, tempo and texture, though these are recorded digitally.

"Epitaph" is more than a collection of pieces, it is a massive concert score in its own right. I strongly recommend that, if you are new to Mingus, that you move into this set slowly by sampling some of his own earlier recordings, but I guarantee that you won't be disappointed.

I saw Epitaph at Wolf Trap as the second performance following its resurrection. The lineup was spectacular and Mingus' widow and the (I'm working off memory) academic from Toronto who compiled the work from a trunk of numbered scoeres were both on hand. As the orchestra got into the work the winds kicked up and a cloudburst hit with lightning and thunder echoing around the venue. The ghost of Mingus was with us that night and is suffused throughout the score.
Buy this and play it loudly.

Charles Mingus was a musical genius and the best composer to come out of this country. People need to stop listening to music with blinders on. If you thought this was just noise I really feel sorrow that you could not see the passion, emotion, and beauty that made Mingus who he was!

Was at the 1962 Town Hall concert when he first let us hear some of this...in between walk outs where he just stormed out and an hour or so later came back...and no one in the audience left for all those hours. If we're smart, we give genius whatever room it needs since there's so little of it around in anyone's lifetime. Much of this great man of music is caught by another great musician/musicologist Gunter Schiller and a few good men like Wynton Marsalis and many other 'notables' who woulda given their year's pay just to be there...playing at this tribute...and here he is again...not 'back from the dead'..but proving he never died. Charles Mingus will always live. This 'Epitaph' title is about as serious a title as his 'Eat That Chicken' and he woulda laughed at it. 'Epitaph my a-s' he probably said..through all that thunder and lightening that struck over Wolf Trap the first time this great reconstructed collection was played in public...with his wife in the audience hearing both the thunder in the music and the thunder in the sky... knowing it was all from the same source. Buy this...listen to it..then get mingusmingusmingus and OH YEAH..and he'll live in you too. Play it all for your friends...and your kids. They'll all play it for their friends and their kids...they'll write their own reviews...and on he lives.

I am really disappointed that I spent a nickel on this piece of jumbled noise called a CD. Too bad I can't send it back.

The first time I heard this music, I knew it was something special, out of the ordinary. These are the great compositions that Mingus left after his death to be played as his "epitaph," and they are complex and challenging to the listener.

Gunther Schuller does a superb job of conducting this complex score and capturing a true Mingus feeling despite the leader's unavoidable absence. If you compare the original Town Hall performances of these works, conducted by Mingus himself, to these recreations, you will be amazed by how similar they are in feel, tempo and texture, though these are recorded digitally.

"Epitaph" is more than a collection of pieces, it is a massive concert score in its own right. I strongly recommend that, if you are new to Mingus, that you move into this set slowly by sampling some of his own earlier recordings, but I guarantee that you won't be disappointed.

I saw Epitaph at Wolf Trap as the second performance following its resurrection. The lineup was spectacular and Mingus' widow and the (I'm working off memory) academic from Toronto who compiled the work from a trunk of numbered scoeres were both on hand. As the orchestra got into the work the winds kicked up and a cloudburst hit with lightning and thunder echoing around the venue. The ghost of Mingus was with us that night and is suffused throughout the score.
Buy this and play it loudly.

Charles Mingus was a musical genius and the best composer to come out of this country. People need to stop listening to music with blinders on. If you thought this was just noise I really feel sorrow that you could not see the passion, emotion, and beauty that made Mingus who he was!

Was at the 1962 Town Hall concert when he first let us hear some of this...in between walk outs where he just stormed out and an hour or so later came back...and no one in the audience left for all those hours. If we're smart, we give genius whatever room it needs since there's so little of it around in anyone's lifetime. Much of this great man of music is caught by another great musician/musicologist Gunter Schiller and a few good men like Wynton Marsalis and many other 'notables' who woulda given their year's pay just to be there...playing at this tribute...and here he is again...not 'back from the dead'..but proving he never died. Charles Mingus will always live. This 'Epitaph' title is about as serious a title as his 'Eat That Chicken' and he woulda laughed at it. 'Epitaph my a-s' he probably said..through all that thunder and lightening that struck over Wolf Trap the first time this great reconstructed collection was played in public...with his wife in the audience hearing both the thunder in the music and the thunder in the sky... knowing it was all from the same source. Buy this...listen to it..then get mingusmingusmingus and OH YEAH..and he'll live in you too. Play it all for your friends...and your kids. They'll all play it for their friends and their kids...they'll write their own reviews...and on he lives.

First of all this is not a live album, this is Mingus' final studio session recorded in New York in 1977. The exact same music has appeared under the guise of various odd titles and labels, including a CD on Amazon called "His Final Work" (which is a couple bucks cheaper). Having heard only this particular release, I can't compare sound quality, packaging, etc. with the other releases of this material.

I have to wonder if Mingus intended for this session to ever be commercially released: the sound quality, while quite good, has a certain dry, hollow quality to it or something. The performance itself may throw you off a bit... there is little of the edginess and raw energy usually heard on a Mingus album. The ensemble is a larger one, including brass, reeds, and vibes... notable names include Gerry Mulligan on bari sax and Lionel Hampton on vibraphone (who is featured quite prominently). Arrangements of Mingus chestnuts such as "Fables of Faubus" and "Peggy's Blue Skylight" are interesting to hear in this setting, though less dynamic than several other recorded versions. (Incidentally, the actual arrangements here were apparently not done by Mingus himself.) Of most interest to collectors are the tunes "Caroline Keikki Mingus" and "Farewell Farewell" which I have not heard elsewhere. They are both pleasant yet moody tone poems with lush harmonies characteristic of Mingus' late work. "Just for Laughs" and "Ellington's Sound of Love" are both reworkings of material heard on the wonderful "Changes" Atlantic albums. "It Might As Well Be Spring" is a pretty but sleepy run-through of the standard.

Mainly of interest to Mingus fanatics and completists (myself included), this is an interesting document of Mingus' final days, but it hardly measures up to some of his other excellent later work such as "Changes (one & two)" and "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion."