Friday, October 23, 2009

Charles MINGUS - East Coasting By Charlie Mingus 1957


Charles MINGUS - East Coasting By Charlie Mingus 1957

Jazz

This sextet session dates from 1957, when the volcanic bassist and composer was first assembling his Jazz Workshop. Mingus had already put together the core of the band that would reach its summit two years later with Mingus Ah Um, including saxophonist Shafi Hadi, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, and drummer Dannie Richmond, who would be with Mingus's bands for the next two decades. The music has Mingus's distinct stamp, the rhythmic aggressiveness, sudden time (and mood) shifts, contrapuntal themes, and a palette of sounds that reaches back through bop to early jazz for the vocalizing, plunger-muted horns. His bass often sounds like articulate thunder as he presses his musicians toward a unique musical vision. Completing the group are two striking soloists: the seldom-heard trumpeter Clarence Shaw, best known for his work on Mingus's contemporaneous New Tijuana Moods, who combines thoughtful hesitancy and melodic daring; and pianist Bill Evans, whose distinctive musical presence and lyric imagination add to Mingus's often dense harmonies. The turbulent "West Coast Ghost" and the emotionally charged "Celia" stand out. --Stuart Broomer

The composer and bass player Charles Mingus recorded East Coasting for Bethlehem in 1957, in between such classics as Tijuana Moods (RCA) and Mingus Ah Um (Columbia). In addition to featuring an early version of "Celia," along with some numbers he never recorded again, East Coasting is notable for the presence of pianist Bill Evans, who briefly worked for Mingus before joining Miles Davis for the landmark Kind Of Blue.
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Charles Mingus was one of the great jazz composers and bassists. His career began with stints in the bands of Kid Ory and Louis Armstrong in the early `40s when he was barely out of his teens. He went on to become a monster in the jazz world, both as a musician and as a larger-than-life personality known for his anger at racial injustice and his one-man war with the music industry.

His 1959 masterpiece, Mingus Ah Um, is an essential in any jazz collection, and Pithecanthropus Erectus, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady are also required listening. East Coasting, recorded in August, 1957, is not as well known, but its resurrection as part of Shout! Factory's reissue program of classic albums from the catalog of the long defunct Bethlehem record label has its share of masterful moments, compositionally and in its arrangements, that should bring it a deserved reevaluation and overdue recognition.

Many of the standard Mingus musical tricks are on display here, from the finely crafted melodic statements to the free-flowing group improvisations. "Celia" foreshadows "Self Portrait in Three Colors" on Mingus Ah Um, the title track cooks with fine-tuned bop precision, and "West Coast Ghost" purrs with echoes of Ellington but with that cross-horn interplay so distinctive to the bassist's writing. The opening harmonies of "Conversation" are almost Oliver Nelson-ish, but devolve soon enough into the trademark phrase trading commonplace in Mingus' music.

The sextet lineup includes Mingus stalwarts Jimmy Knepper on trombone and Dannie Richmond behind the drums, while the piano chair is occupied by Bill Evans just months before he joined Miles Davis for what would be a seminal but short lived partnership ultimately yielding Kind of Blue.
By Jim Newsom.
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Charles Mingus' East Coasting, originally released in 1957, was overshadowed by the session that preceded it, New Tijuana Moods (which wasn't released until 1962), and 1959's monumental Mingus Ah Um, both of which used essentially the same musicians (Jimmy Knepper on trombone, Clarence Gene Shaw on trumpet, Shafi Hadi (aka Curtis Porter) on tenor and alto sax, Dannie Richmond on drums, Mingus on bass, and for East Coasting, a young, pre-Miles Davis Bill Evans on piano). But although East Coasting is both more subdued and mainstream, at least for Mingus, than either of those more celebrated albums, it has more than enough of its own charm to go around. The opening cut, a version of the 1930s standard "Memories of You," seems a bit out of place on this set, although it exhibits a marvelous and haunting smoothness, and proves that when Mingus chose to, he could play the mainstream game as well as any of his contemporaries. The center of this set is undoubtedly the ten-minute-plus "West Coast Ghost," which is as autobiographical as it is impressive. Mingus, of course, wasn't particularly "East Coast" or "West Coast" in his jazz leanings, being really more of his own coast altogether, but on East Coasting he comes as close as he ever would to reconciling his sense of post-bop jazz with the general public's perception of it, making this one of his most accessible albums. This reissue adds alternate takes of "Memories of You" and "East Coasting."
By Steve Leggett, All Music Guide.
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Clarence Shaw- Trumpet
Jimmy Knepper- Trombone
Curtis Porter- Alto , Tenor Sax
Bill Evans- Piano
Charles Mingus- Bass
Dannie Richmond- Drums
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01. Memories Of You (Take 7) 4:26
02. East Coasting (Take 4) 5:13
03. West Coast Ghost (Take 6) 10:28
04. Celia (Take 5) 7:54
05. Conversation (Take 16) 5:28
06. Fifty-First Street Blues (Take 4) 5:48
07. East Coasting (Alternate Take 3) 5:30
08. Memories Of You (Alternate Take 3) 4:40
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