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Today’s track is from the renowned bass player Charles Mingus. Typical of the era in which it was written, it’s a fast swing number with lots of brass, 8 musicians performing various trumpet, trombone, sax and tuba parts, plus Jaki Byard on piano, Walter Perkins on drums, and of course Charles Mingus leading the band and playing bass. It has the feel of a big band track, but with the added complexity and movement of hard bop jazz. It was originally recorded on the 1957 album ‘The Clown’ but was re-released on ‘Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus’ in 1963. Some may recognise the first couple of minutes of the track from 0:50 onwards; it was used as the soundtrack for a Volkswagen car commercial here in the UK.
Charles Mingus was a prominent performer in the jazz scene throughout his career, mainly as a band leader but also as a sideman. Many musicians at the time considered Mingus’ music to be notoriously difficult to play without his leadership, due to the unconventional structure, rhythmic feel, and the use of unusual components from other areas of music such as Classical, African, Gospel and Third Stream – a term coined to describe “a new genre of music located about halfway between jazz and classical”.
Mingus was well known in the industry for his fiery temper, earning him the nickname ‘The Angry Man of Jazz’. He often had arguments and altercations with other musicians, usually due to his unwillingness to compromise his musical integrity or dissatisfaction with fellow performers. Several cases are reported where he chastised the audience for talking, clinking glasses or otherwise failing to appreciate his performance. A number of musicians claimed to have been dismissed or even chased off the stage by Charles Mingus at some point. A notable case of this behaviour was described by singer and guitarist Jackie Paris; “He chased everybody off the stand except [drummer] Paul Motian and me… The three of us just wailed on the blues for about an hour and a half before he called the other cats back.”
Despite the setbacks, behavioural issues, and his on-off struggle with clinical depressions and obesity, Charles mingus left a legacy of music in his name. Mingus’ uncompromising attitude to music and performance, the unwillingness to be categorised or cast into a musical niche, and his sheer inventiveness and unique interpretation of music have set him firmly in place as part of jazz music’s varied and tumultous history. It would be difficult to appropriately cover Charles Mingus’ work in such a short summary, so no doubt his work will be revisited in a future post.
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