Charles Mingus
Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast, 1945-1949 (Uptown)
Record labels have ransacked their vaults so thoroughly over the past four decades that the notion of genuinely rare or unreleased material has become ludicrous. Companies like Mosaic and Rhino add numerous alternate takes to anthologies and “complete” boxed sets, deluging listeners with hours of fluffed notes, false starts, producer patter, and off-color comments. Yet, there’s seldom anything in these “bonus” cuts that listeners really needed to hear.
That’s why jazz fans worldwide were thrilled when the news surfaced last year that Charles Mingus’ missing first recordings were being compiled and released on a single CD. This is a body of work that truly deserves to be unearthed and heard more widely. While collectors and purists had been shelling out hundreds of bucks for the precious few sides that were in circulation, many jazz fans didn’t realize Mingus had cut so many 78s during the late ’40s.
Fortunately, Uptown Records, a small independent company in Whitehall, Mich., obtained the rights last fall to reissue the entire output Mingus recorded for the Excelsior, Four Star, Dolphins of Hollywood, Fentone, and Rex Hollywood labels. They dispatched Seth B. Winner, a restoration engineer who specializes in digital transfers of acetates and pre-album material, to handle the mastering. The results are both gratifying and educational—a rare combination for reissue discs these days. Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast, 1945-1949 offers the bassist in his rawest, most formative period. The disc’s 24 tracks, among them a nearly eight-minute rehearsal fragment that features Mingus flailing around trying to finish a song, fills in a lot of blanks regarding his musical foundations and influences.
Gene Santoro’s controversial book Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus, published last year by Oxford University Press, extensively detailed the bassist’s attributes (compositional brilliance, charismatic leadership abilities, amazing technique) and flaws (incessant tantrums, horrid money management, paranoia, deep insecurity), but offered minimal information or analysis about his earliest work. This CD corrects that oversight, showing us that Mingus began his career making routine jump blues, boogie, and R&B, then steadily moved into the rampaging combo and big band arrangements that ultimately elevated him into jazz’s arranging/writing trinity. (He’s the Son to Duke Ellington’s Father and Thelonious Monk’s Holy Ghost.)
Mingus never accepted conventional wisdom about anything regarding music. He’d taken lessons from a cellist as a youth, and his rapid-fire solos often resembled someone playing the acoustic bass like a guitar: He attacked the instrument, coaxing from it huge, resounding notes that exploded within songs. This approach set him miles apart from the usual time-keeping stylist, as did the fact that Mingus worshipped sound rather than individual musicians.
Mingus possessed a deep knowledge and love for classical music, reflected most in his insistence that his compositions be played as he heard them, not as others might interpret them. While he often went on indefensible rages when a musician played a wrong note, he was far more outraged by what he deemed second-class treatment for creative musicians and especially African Americans. He spent his entire life and career fighting for the respect and justice that he essentially determined was beyond the capacity of this society to provide. This realization only made him angrier. Still, Mingus never stopped battling or experimenting until he lost his fight with ALS in 1979.
That urge is constantly displayed throughout West Coast, 1945-1949. Though Mingus’ early “Baron” tag was a takeoff on Ellington’s “Duke,” he acquired the nickname as much because of his rebellious nature—and even on the tame R&B tunes that comprise the Excelsior sessions, his flamboyance is very much in evidence. His solos on “Shuffle Bass Boogie,” “Jivin’ Blues,” and “Swingin’ an Echo” overshadow solid tenor sax work from Maxwell Davis and Lucky Thompson, while the edge in his accompaniment nearly overwhelms the mannered vocals provided by Oradell Mitchell on “The Texas Hop” and Claude Trenier on “Take a Chance With Me.” Trenier, who fared far better doing “jive” vocals with his brothers in the Treniers, redeems himself on “Weird Nightmare,” the first version of what became a Mingus standard; he dispenses with the flowery mannerisms mid-song, getting closer to the otherworldly aspects suggested by the lyrics. Mingus, meanwhile, keeps increasing the emotional fireworks. The tune ranks as the best of the Excelsior pieces.
The Four Star, Fentone, and first Dolphins of Hollywood sessions rotate between dispensable period piece fluff like “Honey, Take a Chance With Me” and chaotic, explosive Mingus works such as “Lyon’s Roar,” on which he snaps the strings, offers a flurry of notes, then retreats behind Herb Caro’s stately baritone sax lines. One moment he dazzles with solo technique on “Mingus Fingers,” and the next his playing sounds bored and detached on forgettable renditions of “These Foolish Things” and “Pennies From Heaven.”
It’s the Rex Hollywood session, which spotlights Mingus with his 22-piece Bebop Band (actually Stan Kenton’s Sidemen), and the Fenton selections, with a group billed as Charles Mingus Presents His Symphonic Airs, that present the finest examples of Mingus’ emerging creativity. “Inspiration” sparkles with interludes from Eric Dolphy and Art Pepper, strong trombone by Jimmy Knepper and Britt Woodman, plus powerful accompaniment and bass interludes from Mingus. The bands on this track and “The Story of Love” showcase the fiery, brass-dominated sound that represented Mingus in his most comfortable settings. He always preferred great collective improvisation to standout individual solos, yet spent his entire life seeking the perfect amount of each in his compositions. He didn’t find that balance on any of these early recordings, but came closest here.
Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast 1945-1949 provides a vital view of a jazz giant before he became an icon. If there are any other early Mingus recordings residing in a vault somewhere, they should immediately be released. Mingus was too important to have any of his work barred from public consumption—something that can’t be said of most musicians.
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