Charles Mingus Complete 1970s Atlantic box set

[mikeweil]

6 hours ago, mhatta said:

 If they call it "complete", I wish they would have released those as well.

Rhino and Craft are album fetishists now, not completists any more.

[tranemonk]

Is it my imagination or does the packaging/set-up seem extremely unimaginative (aka flimsy)? I don't have any of these records but compared to some of the more recent Mingus releases.... Seems kinda cheap....  Am I missing something?

Okay I just gave a listen to the one track that's available... Not feeling it... Who's the vocalist?

[felser]

35 minutes ago, tranemonk said:

Okay I just gave a listen to the one track that's available... Not feeling it... Who's the vocalist?

If it's "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love", that's Jackie Paris, who has allways been lost on me.  If it's "Moves", that's Doug Hammond (more a drummer than a singer) and Honi Gordon.

[ejp626]

On 4/19/2023 at 5:40 PM, miles65 said:

'Big Alice' and 'The Call' on the CD version are not unissued they are on the Rhino CD version of 'Mingus Moves'. 'Music for Todo Mondo' is the only unissued take on the CD version. 

On the CD 'Cumbia & Jazz Fusion' the 2 takes of Wedding March/Slow Waltz are missing on both the LP and CD version. They are on the Rhino CD issued in 1994.

A resounding NO from me for this set.

Agreed.  I must have all these albums in one format or another (and possibly even the Rhino CDs - will have to check), so I probably wouldn't have gone for it, but the fact that the vinyl set gets 3 extra bonus tracks really gets under my skin, and now there is no way I would consider it.  Not a compelling offering on any level.

[JSngry]

4 hours ago, felser said:

...Jackie Paris, who has allways been lost on me. 

But he made the AllTime Hall Of Fame GREATEST Stalker Song EVER!!!

 

Creepiness aside, I like this early period of him a lot. Very hip. 

[Gheorghe]

17 hours ago, mhatta said:

AFAIK, there are more than 2 takes of Mingus solo piano recordings of "Wedding March/Slow Waltz" (11 min altogether).  Each take is quite different.  There are also fragments of the bass and guitar (Scofield?) practicing. If they call it "complete", I wish they would have released those as well.

I had those two versions of "Wedding March" when I bought the CD version of "Cumbia" since my LP was so much spinned when it came out (Me and my friends had listened to it so much as it was played live by the Mingus band. We loved it so much that we played it in the group I was in then . 
But when I heard those "Wedding March" tracks I had or still have doubts that it´s Mingus who plays that. It sounds too "pianistic" for what I had heard Mingus checkin´ out on piano. It sounds like a pianist with a very delicate light touch. It´s nothing else than the short "caucasian" piano interlude on "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" which is played by Jimmy Rowles. See, that studio version of "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" is grossly overproduced. I heard it live from the quintet with Jack Walrath and Ricky Ford and with Bob Neloms on piano. 
I mean nothing wrong with Jimmy Rowles, but to get him in the studio ONLY to play a short piano passage ? Any pianist could play that simple maybe one minute gimmick which starts with Wedding March and that little waltz that seems to be an English Waltz. 
And it was recorded at Atlantic Studio AFTER the "Three or Four Shades" recording session. So maybe it was done afterwards just as one of the versions suggested for dubbin in the piano solo waltz section. 
I think that "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" is not Mingus´ best composition, I was much more impressed with "Cumbia" and with "Sue´s Changes" from what I heard them play on stage. Until I didn´t hear it on record I had thought it was just a gimmick to makin fun of a "square audience" or so. They had some "gimmicks" in the stage routine then, like in the fade out of "Cumbia" Mingus would continue to play straight ahead walking while the others already had stopped, he plucked the strings and tapped his foot to it, and it went higher and higher up until you couldn´t here more than just his foot tappin  ´. 

I a Brian Priestley discography I think I saw another studio session described as "late 1977" with a track titled "Way Down Blues". But I never heard that.  It was between that strange Hampton session and "Me Myself and I"......

[Justin V]

Ah, man.  'Big Alice' is such a fun tune that I'm disappointed all of the alternates won't be on the CD version.  I'll pass. 

[Jim Duckworth]

On 4/22/2023 at 6:14 PM, tranemonk said:

Okay I just gave a listen to the one track that's available... Not feeling it... Who's the vocalist?

On Apple Music the one available selection is Devil Blues which sports a vocal by George Adams, the tenor player.   This track is "fun," but does not represent what Mingus was up to on the Moves/Changes records.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Jim Duckworth
clarity

[tranemonk]

On 4/25/2023 at 9:43 AM, Jim Duckworth said:

On Apple Music the one available selection is Devil Blues which sports a vocal by George Adams, the tenor player.   This track is "fun," but does not represent what Mingus was up to on the Moves/Changes records.

Thanks... I'm totally on the fence with this one... Importcds has the cd set on sale for slightly less than $60.

[JSngry]

IMO, one should have a decent familiarity with this music. After all, it IS Mingus! At that price, hey.

But if one does have a decent familiarity with it, then one has a decision to make! 

[Guy Berger]

I’ve heard the first 5 albums on this box.

imho the two Changes albums are must-hear.  Don’t love everything on them, but a lot of it is classic music and the band is great. The best 1970s studio Mingus I’ve heard, by far.

I’d rank Cumbia Jazz Fusion next.  It’s fun, though not classic level.

Mingus Moves and Three or Four Shades of Blue are fine. Nothing bad but I would be ok with not hearing them again.

[kh1958]

The vice president goes record shopping.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrzKcPNg-Lw/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

[JSngry]

That was Let My Children Hear Music, right?

An excellent choice. Hope she got the essay to go with it!

[Face of the Bass]

I'm not a huge Mingus fan. This has always been my favorite period of his. Among actual Mingus lovers, it seems to be underrated, from what I can tell. 

[felser]

43 minutes ago, Face of the Bass said:

I'm not a huge Mingus fan. This has always been my favorite period of his. Among actual Mingus lovers, it seems to be underrated, from what I can tell. 

The two Changes albums are well-regarded, Cumbia... somewhat, the others not so much.  I like Moves a lot, but seem almost alone on that.  It was more striking in real tlme when the Changes albums weren't there to outshine it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eric]

3 hours ago, kh1958 said:

The vice president goes record shopping.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrzKcPNg-Lw/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

That was totally cool - thanks for posting.

[kh1958]

16 hours ago, JSngry said:

That was Let My Children Hear Music, right?

An excellent choice. Hope she got the essay to go with it!

Yes.

14 hours ago, felser said:

The two Changes albums are well-regarded, Cumbia... somewhat, the others not so much.  I like Moves a lot, but seem almost alone on that.  It was more striking in real tlme when the Changes albums weren't there to outshine it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not alone, I'm with you.

[mjazzg]

4 minutes ago, kh1958 said:

Yes.

Not alone, I'm with you.

So am I, my favourite late Mingus

I prefer Moves to the Changes albums which I've never taken to despite many attempts to. This thread has made me listen to Cumbia and I like that a lot too

Edited May 6, 2023 by mjazzg

[Gheorghe]

On 5/6/2023 at 4:50 PM, mjazzg said:

So am I, my favourite late Mingus

I prefer Moves to the Changes albums which I've never taken to despite many attempts to. This thread has made me listen to Cumbia and I like that a lot too

Moves ....I try to tell why I don´t like it so much: Somehow the bass articulation of Mingus or the interaction with Danny is not as good as on all other occasions. Some stuff sounds quite half hearted, that Opus which is just the changes of "Pyticantropus Erectus", that boring "Canon" , the vocals that I don´t really like. 
 

The Mingus I saw live had much more tension in it, I heard versions of "Fables" and of "Sue´s Changes" that really surprised me, and the live versions of "Three or Four Shades" as well as of "Cumbia". About Cumbia: From the sound with the augmented band that´s very interesting, but the live versions just the working quinted were somewhat faster and the drumming was fantastic. So I like both the studio Cumbia and the live Cumbia, and the live "Three or Four Shades" is not so overproduced, they didn´t have to record a Jimmy Rowles separatly for that little waltz in it, and the Afro Cuban parts were much sharper in the small combo. 

[ghost of miles]

On 5/5/2023 at 5:40 PM, kh1958 said:

The vice president goes record shopping.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrzKcPNg-Lw/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

Outstanding! Thanks so much for posting that. 

[Mark Stryker]

Just a quick side note to point out that as strong as the two Changes LPs are, the live performances of the band playing this material in 1975 that are out there -- Bremen & Montreux (especially the former) -- are even better. Just insanely great and powerful and more of a 3D impact  of what this band was capable of.  Whatever one decides to do viz the Rhino set, I strongly recommend checking out these concert performances.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Mark Stryker

[T.D.]

14 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

Just a quick side note to point out that as strong as the two Changes LPs are, the live performances of the band playing this material in 1975 that are out there -- Bremen & Montreux (especially the former) -- are even better. Just insanely great and powerful and more of a 3D impact  of what this band was capable of.  Whatever one decides to do viz the Mosaic set, I strongly recommend checking out these concert performances.

Thanks. I have the Bremen and it's very good, better than I expected.

Nitpicking, but you meant the new Rhino set (p.1 upthread), not Mosaic (emphasis added), right?

[There have been so many tedious and pointless "what if" Mosaic threads of late that the word spooked me. 🤣]

[felser]

Because it's Rhino rather than Mosaic, it will be 1/2 the price and 1/6 the shelf space!

[mjazzg]

And be in colour!

[T.D.]

38 minutes ago, felser said:

Because it's Rhino rather than Mosaic, it will be 1/2 the price and 1/6 the shelf space!

I'm likely to buy the set for precisely those reasons. But I'm a Philistine and cheapskate.