WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO! :sonne:
http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=253-MD-CD
Charles Mingus – The Jazz Workshop Concerts 1964-65 (#253)
Mosaic Records Limited Edition Box Set
„Some jazz festivals settle immovable in one’s memory,“ wrote downbeat. „Usually they have that rare and delicious moment when the intensity of a performance, its inspiration, is so overwhelming it sets off something akin to an electric shock… Such a performance roused the Sunday afternoon audience to a cheering, standing ovation at last month’s Monterey Jazz Festival…“
RELEASE DATE: September 18th. If you preorder we do not charge your credit card until the set is released.
Limited Edition: 7,500 copies
6 CDs – $102.00One Of Our Most Significant Releases Ever
From One Of The Few, True Geniuses – Charles MingusWe all know about small, medium and large. Coach, Business, and First Class. And then there’s urgent, critical, and life-threatening. At Mosaic, we have three stages, too: rare and historically important; acclaimed milestone; and undeniably monumental epic masterpiece.
We’ve uncovered another one of those epic masterpieces.We are pleased to announce „Charles Mingus – The Jazz Workshop Concerts 1964-65 (Town Hall, Amsterdam, Monterey & Minneapolis).“ It chronicles the essential live performances of this genius of modern music as his compositions achieved a depth and complexity we would come to know as Mingus’s most signature work. It includes (on the earlier recordings) the brilliant Eric Dolphy, along with Jaki Byard, Dannie Richmond, Johnny Coles, and Clifford Jordan — certainly one of the best assemblages of musicians ever.
And the music, recorded across the world’s concert stages, dashes once and for all every previously-held notion about what is, and isn’t, jazz.
Never Before Available
What makes this collection even more appealing is the fact that, of the six discs in the collection, only one of them has ever been available on an authorized CD. Almost another full CD has never been available on CD at all. And a disc and a half worth of music include new discoveries – appearing for the first time ever, in any form.
Even listeners of the era knew they were witness to something special. Here are the reviews from just the Monterey performance, which included Lonnie Hillyer, Charles McPherson, John Handy, Byard, and Richmond:
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„…he must be ranked among the greatest of jazz composers,“ wrote Time Magazine about Mingus’s 25-minute masterwork, „Meditations for a Pair of Wire Cutters.“
„The audience gasped when it suddenly ended,“ wrote Newsweek, „and roared their approval over and over as Mingus, pacified, like a big happy bear hugged his musicians.“
„Monterey belonged to Charles Mingus, “ wrote The San Francisco Chronicle. „It was a triumph.“
Said Mingus himself: „On stage, I could feel the presence of my musicians like they were touching me…. I just wish I could give you that picture, that moment at Monterey along with the music.“
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How The Jazz Workshop Worked
It was the culmination of an enormous amount of work. In Mingus’s Jazz Workshop the exploration never stopped. Rehearsals could go for days. Performances, if not up to his standards, might be interrupted for the leader to correct a musician, re-chart the course of the music, or admonish the audience for talking.
Mingus’s great theme throughout his life was freedom – freedom from oppression and discrimination, freedom to record and own his own music, freedom from labels like „jazz,“ and freedom from established norms of what constituted composition.
Ultimately, for the Workshop, he abandoned the rituals of traditional chart-writing, choosing to play musicians their parts on the piano, define improvisation in terms of ranges, and detail how ad lib sections and written sections would trade off or blend, obliterating the distinction between the two for the listener. „Organized chaos,“ he called it.
The result? Pieces that were exceptionally challenging to play (sometimes leading to Mingus’s infamous rages at his sidemen) and deeply rewarding to hear.
Distilled The Past, Predicted The Future
His music looked back to all of the history of jazz, and to all that would come after him. He wasn’t just vastly respectful of tradition; he was also utterly inspirational to the free jazz movement and to all independent-minded musicians who would follow. Hearing the music, you almost can’t process how well wrought his concepts were, how unexpectedly dramatic shifts came in dynamics and time, how brilliantly he featured the top musicians of his day, and how beguiling his melodies could be one minute, utterly comic and boisterous the next.
He was also an unsurpassed master on his instrument. There wasn’t a style he didn’t conquer. And then there were a few he invented, like playing a bass line, melody and harmonies at once; or growling, shouting, banging and ripping along – a man in a dialogue with his instrument.
Three of the tunes from the April 4, 1964 performance at Town Hall in New York have never been available before. The lineup of Dolphy, Jordan, Coles, Byard, and Richmond also performed in Amsterdam on April 10. The Monterey show in September features Hillyer, McPherson, Byard, and Richmond , expanded by six pieces for „Meditations“ including John Handy Red Callendar, Buddy Collete and Jack Nimitz. In May of 1965, in Minneapolis, he was back to the five-piece Monterey lineup. That last date includes a great rarity, never before on record – „Copa City Titty (aka O.P.),“ recorded only once before on an obscure Japanese big band record.
The music ranges from his interpretations of Ellington, tributes to his musicians („Praying With Eric“), an exuberant celebration of Art Tatum and Fats Waller by Jaki Byard, an enormously ambitious portrait of bop called „Parkeriana,“ and Mingus’s own spectaculars: „Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk;“ „Meditations,“ „Fable of Faubus,“ and „So Long Eric.“
Mosaic’s box set includes an essay and track by track analysis by Mingus biographer Brian Priestly and many rare photographs from the concerts. Like all of Mosaic’s sets, our release is strictly limited. Our last Mingus set sold out and will never be available again. Please order yours. This is truly a find worth hearing, worth savoring, and worth collecting.
Read More About Charles Mingus:
Track Listing, Personnel & Recording Dates »Although Charles left me in charge of his music publishing I had little idea what was involved. I imagine he would not be surprised that his music lives on or that repertory bands perform his music each week (the Mingus Big Band won a Grammy last year), or that his 500-page masterwork “Epitaph” was performed and published posthumously, or that a national Mingus High School Competition co-sponsored with the Manhattan School of Music and now in its fifth year, continues to inspire students across the land. In this 90th birthday anniversary year, Mingus music reaches a larger audience than ever. The Mosaic box set, with its offering of music recorded almost half a century ago, is a powerful reminder of just how contemporary that legacy continues to be. – Sue Mingus, liner notes
Ich kann’s kaum fassen, das sind grossartige Neuigkeiten!
Natürlich wäre eine komplette Box dieser Konzerte noch toller (ich hab die Jazz Icon DVD noch immer nicht, auf Bootlegs gibt’s noch einiges mehr), aber allein die Tatsache, dass „My Favorite Quintet“ wieder greifbar wird, ist klasse, und dass Malcolm Addey sich an den Aufnahmen aus Amsterdam und Monterey versuchen wird (oder schon hat) lässt ebenfalls hoffen (wenngleich keine Wunder zu erwarten sein dürften, das sind Live-Aufnahmen, die wohl mit vergleichweise primitiven Mitteln erstellt wurden).
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #165: Johnny Dyani (1945–1986) - 9.9., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba