![]() ![]() In 1973, Mingus re-signed with Atlantic and was reborn, artistically and professionally. ![]() It’s an amazing record that should be much better known. Produced with Teo Macero and released on Columbia, it featured a large orchestra playing some brilliant new compositions including “The Shoes Of The Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers,” “Don’t Be Afraid, The Clown’s Afraid Too,” and “The Chill Of Death,” which included a recitation of the title poem. After recording the latter, Mingus went on a European tour with an incredible band featuring Dolphy, trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianist Jaki Byard, and drummer Dannie Richmond many live recordings exist, but again, following Dolphy’s death, there was almost no new music until 1972’s Let My Children Hear Music. His early ’60s Impulse! albums The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady and Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus are two of his greatest works, the former an artfully orchestrated studio masterpiece and the latter a raucous, wall-pounding collection of rave-ups recorded with an 11-piece band. His recordings from the late 1950s - Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Dynasty on Columbia and Pithecanthropus Erectus, The Clown, and Blues & Roots, all on Atlantic - are landmarks not just in his catalog, but in jazz as a whole. That said, there are some key eras of his work that can be explored. Mingus would release an album on Columbia and one on Atlantic within months of each other, then start his own label and issue still more material, or sell live recordings to anyone who wanted to put them out. Coltrane was signed to Prestige, then to Atlantic, then to Impulse!, allowing fans to track their artistic evolution with relative ease. Davis was signed to Prestige, then to Columbia, and finally to Warner Bros. His recordings were scattered among too many labels, and he re-worked and re-recorded his tunes too many times, for listeners to stay caught up. He went through periods of emotional upheaval where he’d hardly work at all after Eric Dolphy’s death in 1964, Mingus virtually disappeared for five years. He famously destroyed a bass onstage at the Five Spot in response to heckling from the crowd, and punched trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth during a rehearsal, knocking out one of his teeth and ruining his embouchure. ![]() He had a volcanic temper that was at one time or another turned on almost everyone in his personal and professional life - bandmates, record labels, managers, wives (he had four), even audiences. His name should be as familiar as theirs to people who know almost nothing about jazz, but it’s not, for a variety of reasons. Charles Mingus might be the ultimate example of someone who’s “jazz famous.” Within jazz circles, he’s revered, but he should be as well-known as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, or John Coltrane. ![]()
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