Word: epitaph
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This botched masterwork is titled Epitaph, and its composer was Charles Mingus, the protean jazz bassist who died in 1979 at age 56. "There has been nothing like it in jazz, before or since," says Gunther Schuller, the multifaceted composer, conductor and musicologist who edited the score, which was discovered among Mingus' papers after his death. Schuller directed a proper world premiere of the work at New York City's Lincoln Center last year. (CBS has issued a recording of the performance.) He was at the podium last week for another Manhattan performance, which was to be reprised...
Schuller calls Epitaph "a musical summary of one of the great jazz composers of the century, from the sweet and gentle Mingus to the angry Mingus." In style, Epitaph is characteristic of his orchestral compositions: echoes of gospel songs and his acknowledged master, Duke Ellington; abrupt rhythmic shifts; fleeting lyrical passages (often scored for piano or vibes) that unexpectedly explode into dissonant choruses of yawps and growls; high- register solos underscored by ostinato refrains on basses and trombones. Some of the sections allow for considerable improvisation: a full-throttle version of Better Get It in Your Soul -- one of Mingus...
Mingus specified most of the musicians he wanted to play Epitaph. Two were at Lincoln Center last week: Eddie Bert on trombone and Don Butterfield on tuba. For the performers, keeping Epitaph alive has been a labor of love, although not without its complications. Five or six sections of the work, Schuller contends, are as difficult as anything in the classical repertory, comparable in density to Charles Ives' Fourth Symphony or Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. "These parts are so complex contrapuntally," says Schuller, "that musicians used to conventional jazz expression are just overwhelmed. It leaves them huffing and puffing...
Colacello can be funny when he notes that the drawback to linking up with high-visibility people like Imelda Marcos is "their tendency to attract assassins." But mostly, he is petty and meanspirited. He fittingly closes with a bit of celebrity mugging that serves as a pathetic epitaph for his putative patron. In a group invited to Warhol's house after his death, Colacello takes the opportunity to steal into Warhol's private bathroom so that he can catalog the anti-aging cosmetics and acne ointments for inclusion on the last page of this book. These two creatures of hype...
...attentive readers. Some of yesterday's faddiest publications, like Rolling Stone, built on precisely that kind of approach to become today's prosperous graybeards. Many media watchers had recognized similar prospects for 7 Days, which in April won a National Magazine Award for general excellence. It was an ironic epitaph: the magazine had gone out of business one week earlier, citing low ad pages, a slack economy and a dearth of interested buyers...