Mingus & Cecil on a TV Show

[JSngry]

Did Martin Williams get paid extra for being THAT uptight? Or Ralph Ellison for being so withering?

Apart from that, two words - Hobart Dotson.

[felser]

Sidemen?  - Lyons/Grimes/Cyrille with Taylor?    Dotson/Jordan/Watkins/Howard Johnson/Richmond with Mingus?

[Larry Kart]

McPherson, not Jordan, I believe. Murray not Cyrillie, perhaps. That was rather uptight even for Martin. Blessings on whoever found this. Sad that there's so little Dotson available.

[T.D.]

11 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

McPherson, not Jordan, I believe. Murray not Cyrillie, perhaps. That was rather uptight even for Martin. Blessings on whoever found this. Sad that there's so little Dotson available.

Definitely McPherson. I think Lonnie Hillyer has one trumpet part (looks like him around 18:45).

Edited April 23, 2022 by T.D.

[JSngry]

Lyons/Grimes/Murray.

Unmistakable visages all!

 

[Mark Stryker]

The Mingus personnel: Lonnie Hillyer, Hobart Dotson, Jimmy Owens, Julius Watkins, Howard Johnson, Charles McPherson, Mingus, Dannie Richmond. (Three Detroiters here: McPherson, Hillyer, Watkins. McPherson and Owens are the only two still with us.)

The cats are bringing it. So is Ellison. 

Edited April 23, 2022 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Dotson/Hillyer/Jimmy Owens, whose glasses and rotary valve flugel horn each have unmistakable visages!

Had Cecil yet recorded playing the inside of the piano? That's a very...precise performance.

The man remains a word unto himself, even after a lifetime of showing that it could be done - and how to do it - the best that has happened is that it's sorta still getting there.

[Mark Stryker]

Not to high jack the thread, but this film was on my mind today as I put together a list of my 10 favorite Mingus records for his centennial. The same personnel played these same tow compositions at Monterey a week later and at UCLA two weeks later. The latter recordings shows up on my list. FWIW, here's what I came up with. Note that these are my personal favorites, not my view of the "best" or most "important" or "influential." When someone new to Mingus asks me where to start, I always default to "Mingus Ah Um." 

1. Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
2. Let My Children Hear Music  (1971)
3. Charles Mingus @ Bremen, 1964 & 1975
4. Mingus at Monterey (1964)
5. Music Written For Monterey, 1965, UCLA
6. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1960)
7. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963)
8. Tijuana Moods (1957)
9  Pre-Bird (1960)
10. If I don't say Mingus Ah Um (1959) I will get flamed

Coda 1: Upon reflection, what I would like to do if the judges will allow it: Replace Mingus Ah Um with Blues & Roots -- BUT also take "Self Portrait in Three Colors" from the former as a single bonus track.

Coda 2: Note that the Bremen concerts at No. 3 gets me early all of the Changes One/Two material by the Adams/Pullen/Walrath band in 1975, as well as a great concert by the '64 sextet with Dolphy/Jordan/Coles/Byard. (Of course, Dannie Richmond plays on both.)

[Larry Kart]

49 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

The Mingus personnel: Lonnie Hillyer, Hobart Dotson, Jimmy Owens, Julius Watkins, Howard Johnson, Charles McPherson, Mingus, Dannie Richmond. (Three Detroiters here: McPherson, Hillyer, Watkins. McPherson and Owens are the only two still with us.)

The cats are bringing it. So is Ellison. 

Disagree on Ellison here. On more than a few occasions he would make the claim that the avant-garde (or call it what you will) was donning the trappings of European modernism in an attempt to win intellectual respect, but that rhetoric of his was always something of a crock and lazy too. Cecil is inside that piano because that's where the sounds he wanted to make were. IIRC Ellison even mistrusted Charlie Parker's music.

[Late]

32 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

1. Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
2. Let My Children Hear Music  (1971)
3. Charles Mingus @ Bremen, 1964 & 1975
4. Mingus at Monterey (1964)
5. Music Written For Monterey, 1965, UCLA
6. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1960)
7. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963)
8. Tijuana Moods (1957)
9  Pre-Bird (1960)
10. Mingus Ah Um (1959)

I did the same thing yesterday! Mine were:

1. The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady
2. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
3. Oh Yeah!
4. Mingus Present Mingus
5. Mingus (Candid)
6. Pre-Bird
7. East Coasting
8. Mingus Ah Um
9. Blues & Roots
10. Changes (Vol.s 1 & 2)

[Late]

I'd never seen Hobart Dotson before. Love his work with Sun Ra.

 

[Gheorghe]

Thanks for sharing this. Wonderful Mingus from the time of the UCLA record.

and the great Cecil Taylor, with Jimmy Lions. A fantastic piece. 

[Joe]

Wow. Just wow. Thanks!

[mhatta]

These materials were released as a bootleg (Boris Rose's Ozone 19), but I didn't know the actual video (originally WNET NYC) footage survived.  Nice!

[Steve Reynolds]

Sunny Murray!!!

Grimes is also smoking hot. 

[AllenLowe]

On 4/23/2022 at 11:38 PM, Larry Kart said:

Disagree on Ellison here. On more than a few occasions he would make the claim that the avant-garde (or call it what you will) was donning the trappings of European modernism in an attempt to win intellectual respect, but that rhetoric of his was always something of a crock and lazy too. Cecil is inside that piano because that's where the sounds he wanted to make were. IIRC Ellison even mistrusted Charlie Parker's music.

both Ellison and Albert Murray hated bebop (there is a fascinating book of their letters to each other in which they are less guarded than in public statements); Murray in particular also thought the '50s Basie band was an abomination.

[kh1958]

On 4/23/2022 at 10:39 PM, Late said:

I did the same thing yesterday! Mine were:

1. The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady
2. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
3. Oh Yeah!
4. Mingus Present Mingus
5. Mingus (Candid)
6. Pre-Bird
7. East Coasting
8. Mingus Ah Um
9. Blues & Roots
10. Changes (Vol.s 1 & 2)

1. The Great Concert of Charles Mingus

2. Tijuana Moods

3. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus

4. Mingus Ah Um

5. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

6. Changes One and Two

7. Mingus at Antibes

8. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

9. Blues and Roots

10. Pithecanthropus Erectus

[Late]

30 minutes ago, kh1958 said:

10. Pithecanthropus Erectus

D'oh! How could I have left this one off my list? I would cram it between my #4 and #5. 

[Holy Ghost]

This is cool! Cool to hear Cecil talking too.

[Gheorghe]

16 hours ago, kh1958 said:

1. The Great Concert of Charles Mingus

2. Tijuana Moods

3. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus

4. Mingus Ah Um

5. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

6. Changes One and Two

7. Mingus at Antibes

8. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

9. Blues and Roots

10. Pithecanthropus Erectus

Great list . Thanks !  A fellow Mingus Fan. 

 

9 hours ago, Holy Ghost said:

This is cool! Cool to hear Cecil talking too.

Yeah. I love his music, mostly with Jimmy Lions, but when I tried to read his liner notes on "Unit Structures" I must say I understood only "Bahnhof" as we say in Germany and Austria (means I didn´t understand nothing). At one point there is a question "Where is Bud ?" without any context to the other heavy stuff. Bud still lived at the time of those recordings and even had made his last own recording and the two met each other. 

So I didn´t understand the words, but the music really touches me.....

[JSngry]

Took me a while to figure out that the liner notes to Unit Structures were essentially poetry. I was, like, 15-16 when I got the record and really was unaware of such things.

Had Cecil been documented playing the inside of the piano prior to this telecast, on record or elsewhere?

[clifford_thornton]

I don't believe so? 

No.1 I think became Amplitude, which he recorded with Lyons, Silva, and Cyrille.

[Holy Ghost]

I (tried) to listen to what Cecil was saying, I can't follow wtf that dude was saying at all. Just to hear him speak, he's a genius (clearly knows what he's talking about). 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Holy Ghost