Word: mingus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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WHEN the great man came to New York in the early '50s, they called him Charlie Mingus. A few years later he announced that Charlie was a name for a boy or a horse--and Charles he has remained. Or simply Mingus, the name as distinctive as its bearer. Given a career that is a case study in the plight of the black American artist, it's not hard to see why the musical importance of Charles Mingus has so often been eclipsed by the drama of his troubled life. Even as he first established his unique and revolutionary talent...
...Mingus was a man of giant appetites and violent passions, and he elevated these traits to mythic proportions in his autobiographical Beneath the Underdog, published in 1972. He shouted, he threw things, he stormed out of clubs. At times he became obsessed with the (probably justified) fear that other musicians were capitalizing on ideas stolen from him, and he refused to solo if he suspected that spies were present. He quit performing in the late '60s, boarded himself up in an East Village apartment, and spent years fighting illnesses, poverty, and severe depression. The '70s found him back...
...MYSELF AN EYE was recorded in January 1978, not long after a nerve disease had ended Mingus's playing career by forcing him into a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It was recorded hastily by a 25-piece ensemble consisting largely of white studio musicians who have little or no previous association with Mingus. The album confirms Mingus's pervasive musical personality precisely because of these limitations. Lacking the leader's enormous presence on bass, as well as the discipline of the handpicked, carefully trained small workshops for which he is best known, Me Myself An Eye remains...
...foremost contribution of Mingus as musical thinker is surely his imaginative rethinking of traditional ideas. He gave modern jazz what it needed most--a link to its own past. The music on Me Myself An Eye expresses Mingus's interest and sympathetic understanding of the sources of black American music. The blues, gospel, church music, the spiritual ballad--these are the wellsprings of Mingus's musical heritage, and all are represented here. Side One is "Three Worlds of Drums," a 30-minute suite in which Mingus uses black music's most elemental instrument as a figure for the history...
Side Two consists of two thoughtfully reworked Mingus standards and a poignant new ballad that surely ranks among his best. "Devil Woman" was first recorded in 1961; it is basically a slow blues, but this arrangement takes so many unexpected rhythmic turns that the performance required the composer's help in counting off the choruses. Guitarist Larry Coryell shines among the soloists, reaching way back into blues history for a solo that matches the spirit of the piece. "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" goes back to 1959, when Mingus recorded it on his Blues and Roots album. This arrangement begins...