Mingus at Carnegie Hall, Deluxe Edition

[JSngry]

Willing to bet that Mingus had them, or at least quality copies.

[mhatta]

I ordered physical discs, but I listened via Spotify anyway...(so I haven't read liner notes).  Some thoughts:

1. The sound quality is very good.  Obviously from master tapes.  Where have those tapes been?  I thought they are burnt out in 1978...

2. Jon Faddis played not only on the jam session but also the previously unreleased materials.  He was a phenomenal (and a bit too loud) trumpet player, but I always think his phrasing goes nowhere.

3. "Big Alice" is rarely played live (I think the only other occasion was in 1973), and had really nice second line groove.

And I should say, I love the vitality and boldness of this music.  It's rarely seen anymore.

On 2021/6/12 at 3:24 AM, kh1958 said:

I don't find substantiation on the internet  but i could swear I once read about a Carnegie Hall Mingus concert with Sonny Rollins as guest.

 

I heard that "Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert" (Feb. 4, 1972 at Philharmonic Hall) originally planned to feature Rollins, but Rollins declined and Gene Ammons called in.

[kh1958]

My Mingus want list:

1. Complete Mingus at Newport.

2. Mingus at Ronnie Scott's.

3. Collection of live recordings by the last Mingus group with Ricky Ford.

4. Complete remastered Birdland broadcasts.

[bertrand]

11 hours ago, mhatta said:

I ordered physical discs, but I listened via Spotify anyway...(so I haven't read liner notes).  Some thoughts:

1. The sound quality is very good.  Obviously from master tapes.  Where have those tapes been?  I thought they are burnt out in 1978...

2. Jon Faddis played not only on the jam session but also the previously unreleased materials.  He was a phenomenal (and a bit too loud) trumpet player, but I always think his phrasing goes nowhere.

3. "Big Alice" is rarely played live (I think the only other occasion was in 1973), and had really nice second line groove.

And I should say, I love the vitality and boldness of this music.  It's rarely seen anymore.

I heard that "Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert" (Feb. 4, 1972 at Philharmonic Hall) originally planned to feature Rollins, but Rollins declined and Gene Ammons called in.

The sound quality is very good.  Obviously from master tapes.  Where have those tapes been?  I thought they are burnt out in 1978...

Excellent question! My hunch is that the Hasaan discovery made them reorganize their tapes somewhat. I will dig around.

Complete Mingus at Newport.

Absolutely. Some great music there...

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by bertrand

[Jim Duckworth]

On 6/12/2021 at 1:24 PM, kh1958 said:

I just wish all major Mingus concerts in the 1970s had been recorded.

Here is a review of a 1976 concert at Carnegie Halll with flamenco dancers and Jimmy Knepper, playing music from Tijuana Moods. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/28/archives/mingus-plays-flamenco-with-azucena-dancers.html?searchResultPosition=1

 

I was actually at this one.  The surprising part of the show, in retrospect, is that Jimmie Knepper played with the group that night.

[felser]

24 minutes ago, Jim Duckworth said:

I was actually at this one.  The surprising part of the show, in retrospect, is that Jimmie Knepper played with the group that night.

Speaks highly of Knepper as a man.

[mikeweil]

On 19.6.2021 at 4:29 AM, mjzee said:

Interesting that these tapes didn’t burn up in the Atlantic fire.

It was pre 1969 session tapes that wete stored in the warehouse that was destroyed.

[medjuck]

Yesterday I heard an interview with Richard Brody who claimed that most of the concert wasn't originally released because of a bad review in the NY Times.  Anyone know who wrote the review? 

[JSngry]

John S Wilson

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/21/archives/pop-music-a-medallion-too-for-ella-fitzgerald-minguss-jazz-friends.html?searchResultPosition=1

Mingus's Jazz Friends Join Him at Carnegie

In “An Evening With Charles Mingus and Old Friends” at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night, Mr. Mingus, a powerful creative force in jazz during the nineteen‐fifties and early sixties, was upstaged not only by his old friends but even by his relatively new friends. Mr. Mingus's current quintet, which opened the program, was unable to capture any of the identifiable Mingus characteristics. Instead, once past theme statements, the group rattled off colorless solos. The quintet showed real cohesion and development only on “Big Alice,” a composition by Don Pullen, the group's pianist, which had drive, color and imagination.

His “old friends”—Rahsaan Roland Kirk, John Handy and Charles McPherson—came out in the second half to join Mr. Mingus's regular saxophonists, George Adams and Hamiet Bluitt, in a “battle of the saxes.” This turned out to be a revival of those long‐winded, successions of solos that passed for jam sessions at Jazz at the Philharmonic Concerts 20 years ago. Instead of Illinois Jacquet turning the audience on by honking, as once was the case,, Mr. Kirk's flooding clusters of hard, incisive notes was the stimulant, which, at least, was an improvement.

JOHN S. WILSON

50 years has passed, everybody has died, we all know what lie ahead, etc etc etc, so nostalgic reveries are certainly allowable, perhaps unavoidable. But I still don't hear Bluiett playing Mingus Music as much as I hear him playing Bluiett Saxophone on top of Mingus Music. And George Adams...almost there, about to get there. So that's not the review I would have written (for one thing, Don Pullen was already ALL the way there and should have been noticed!), but...I get at least the general real-time gist of it.

I think Mingus did too, at least the part about the quintet. That jam-session stuff, hey, John s Wilson. What can you say? One of those critics who had a niche and thought it was the universe.

[Niko]

Charles McPherson hasn't died

[JSngry]

oops! And I'm thankful about that.

[kh1958]

Jon Faddis is also still alive, as is John Handy.

Edited June 29, 2021 by kh1958

[JSngry]

Yikes!

Faddis doesn't really matter to me (never did, really, once getting past the whole "WOW, he's a kid and he plays JUST LIKE DIZZY!!!" thing...that was a thing in real-time, that hype was. But I guess he's now long been a proven lead player, and there's no shame in that! The world needs more real, true lead players, for every section. Nothing worse than some "project" coming together and it's all (at best) section players with no lead players.

Is Handy still active?

Wishing them all continued happiness in this realm. And hoping the others are finding happiness in whatever realm(s) they find themselves in now.

[kh1958]

I last saw John Handy and Charles McPherson play live in October of 2015, separately but within a couple of days of one another. Both sounded great. More recently, I don't know.

Jon Faddis led the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band until it disbanded some years ago. Never heard it but from what I read it had a solid reputation and was superior to Wynton's repertory big band.

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by kh1958

[bertrand]

John Handy was at a Healdsburg jazz Zoom meeting a few months ago. I think he had had some health issues, but it seems they were suggesting he was still gigging.

What instrument does John S. Wilson play?

Edited June 29, 2021 by bertrand

[JSngry]

12 minutes ago, bertrand said:

What instrument does John S. Wilson play?

when he was alive, the printed word.

and he had a Sonny Rollins tune naed after him, although a few decades later there would also be one called "Times Slimes" about that erstwhile publication's coverage of the crime issues of the day. So, I guess he got it while the getting was good.

[bertrand]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

when he was alive, the printed word.

and he had a Sonny Rollins tune naed after him, although a few decades later there would also be one called "Times Slimes" about that erstwhile publication's coverage of the crime issues of the day. So, I guess he got it while the getting was good.

At the age of 58, I have come to the conclusion that I have no use for music critics.

[JSngry]

I don't mind reading other people's impressions. That's kinda why we come to this place, at least somewhat.

I also don't mind reading what all happened in places where I was not there. I can't tell you what a difference that made to me growing up where I did, knowing what all was going on in places far removed (geographically, culturally, and philosophically).

I'm certainly more than capable of making up my own mind now, but if not for writers and their outputs, I'm not sure I would now know too much of anything about what it is to have an opinion about.

So in that regard, they did their job, and for that, I am grateful.

Now, these kids today...I don't know what they're saying half the time.

[Ken Dryden]

A friend on the west coast recently told me that John Handy is almost totally blind and not really active.

[JSngry]

Damn. Best wishes for John Handy. Hope he's getting some loving care.

[medjuck]

I saw this quintet in Toronto but the only time I saw Handy was with The Mingus Big Band in LA. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by medjuck

[CJ Shearn]

Got this for my birthday. Loving it, especially the Rahsaan part... I like Jon Faddis but don't think he contributes anything substantial beyond Dizzy tropes here, it's fun, but compared to everyone else, the weakest soloist. My original pre fire collection was Mingus deficient so I'm getting myself up to speed.  BTW I want to thank everyone here who donated to that GFM that got me my new place after the fire... I just closed the GFM a few days back with Thana Alexa who organized it.  

[JSngry]

Everybody loves the Rahsaan parts...but that was on the OG LP!!!!! It was my favorite parts too, and still is!

[medjuck]

5 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Everybody loves the Rahsaan parts...but that was on the OG LP!!!!! It was my favorite parts too, and still is!

I read somewhere (can't find it in the lioner notes) that at one point Rahsaan's  fingering George Adams's sax while Adams blows. Can someone tell me exactly where?  (Or did I hallucinate reading this.) 

[kh1958]

1 minute ago, medjuck said:

I read somewhere (can't find it in the lioner notes) that at one point Rahsaan's  fingering George Adams's sax while Adams blows. Can someone tell me exactly where?  (Or did I hallucinate reading this.) 

I think in the last three minutes or so of C Jam Blues, where Kirk is playing a multi-horn drone and Adams is soloing wildly.