Five classic albums in one package is something else indeed. The five discs from the Atlantic label are Pithecanthropus Erectus, Tonight At Noon, The Clown, Blues and Roots and Oh Yeah - Oh yeah this is verily a magnificent collection of some of the best work by a great band, composer and bassist (and pianist) - Charles Mingus.
How can you rate these other than 10 star plus? Each album, each track, each chorus, each bar is there to savour - these should be in every collection. I even love the cool narration by Jean Shepherd on The Clown. It brings back memories of drinking beer in The Kelly on a Wednesday afternoon with Bill Shaw, Charlie Carmichael and whichever musicians were footloose and thirsty at that time of day. Invariably we would troop back to our place and listen to LPs (Mingus was frequently on the turntable) whilst my long-suffering wife would serve us sobering coffee when she came home from work.
Oh Yeah is unique inasmuch as it is Mingus on piano and vocal (Doug Watkins on bass - how frightening must that have been for him?) Roland Kirk plays everything - usually all at once!
Blues and Roots - the churchy Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting with Booker Ervin and John Handy playing out of their skulls. My Jelly Roll Soul full of affectionate humour and respect for Jelly Roll Morton. Horace Parlan's piano, Jackie McLean, Jimmy Knepper...
Pithecanthropus Erectus - More McLean plus J.R.Montrose on tenor. A Foggy Day - complete with foghorns, police whistles, sirens, taxicab horns and, more importantly an atmospheric Jackie McLean solo.
Tonight at Noon - has some melodic Jimmy Knepper, as well as fiery Shafi Hadi and is a worthy member of this quintology of albums.Knepper, incidentally, was a tower of strength throughout as was drummer Danny Richmond and the leader himself. whose bass playing is still a yardstick today.
The 5 cd set - Charles Mingus Original Album Series - is available from Nov 28.
Lance.
Blues and Roots - the churchy Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting with Booker Ervin and John Handy playing out of their skulls. My Jelly Roll Soul full of affectionate humour and respect for Jelly Roll Morton. Horace Parlan's piano, Jackie McLean, Jimmy Knepper...
Pithecanthropus Erectus - More McLean plus J.R.Montrose on tenor. A Foggy Day - complete with foghorns, police whistles, sirens, taxicab horns and, more importantly an atmospheric Jackie McLean solo.
Tonight at Noon - has some melodic Jimmy Knepper, as well as fiery Shafi Hadi and is a worthy member of this quintology of albums.Knepper, incidentally, was a tower of strength throughout as was drummer Danny Richmond and the leader himself. whose bass playing is still a yardstick today.
The 5 cd set - Charles Mingus Original Album Series - is available from Nov 28.
Lance.
Thank you for this review! I reaaly like the works of Charles Mingus! Doubtfully he is very talented.
ReplyDelete