Once again George Klabin and his Resonance Records label have produced a major archival offering for those particularly interested in provocative jazz inventions from the second half of the twentieth century. Readers may recall that Klabin produced the two-CD album Bill Evans Live at Ronnie Scott’s. One week from today Resonance will release another album from that same venue, Mingus: The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott’s.
This is based on two nights of sessions at Ronnie Scott’s at which Charles Mingus on bass led a sextet, whose other members were Jon Faddis on trumpet, Charles McPherson on alto saxophone, Bobby Jones on tenor saxophone and clarinet, John Foster on piano (and occasional vocals), and Roy Brooks on drums (with a few riffs on musical saw). Two CDs account for a session on August 14, 1972, and a third CD accounts for the following night’s set. As many will expect, Amazon.com is currently taking pre-orders for this new release.
Both evenings favored those in the audience that liked their music to spin out over lengthy durations. On the first program the group invests almost 31 minutes in Mingus’ “Orange was the Color of Her Dress, then Blue Silk,” almost twenty minutes on “Noddin’ Ya Head Blues,” and almost 30 minutes on a Mingus original I had not previously encountered, “Mind-Readers Convention in Milano (aka Number 29).” Mingus then wrapped up that set with 45 seconds of Charlie Parker’s “Ko Ko.”
The second evening began with a 35-minute treatment of “Fables of Faubus.” This is where the vocal work shows up, although it is not as provocative as the recording session for Candid made on October 20, 1960. Orval Faubus was governor of Arkansas between 1955 and 1967. In 1957 he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from entering the Little Rock Central High School to attend classes there. Since Brown v. Board of Education had been decided (unanimously) by the Supreme Court in 1954, this was an egregious flaunting of Federal authority, which probably inspired Mingus to enact his own egregious flaunting of Faubus. How much Londoners knew about this background in 1972 will probably never be established, but I suspect that at least some of them had that Candid album in their possession.
The other major offering on the second night was “Man Who Never Sleeps,” which, like “Noddin’ Ya Head Blues,” ran a bit shy of twenty minutes. These two extended takes were separated by an homage to Louis Armstrong by playing fast and loose with “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The set concluded with “Air Mail Special,” a standard for Benny Goodman’s band, which he composed jointly with James Mundy and Charlie Christian. It is also worth noting that, during the prolonged performances, there are occasional intrusions of tunes appropriated from elsewhere. I have to confess personal delight in the way Faddis summons up memories of Dizzy Gillespie with a few fragments of “Salt Peanuts.”
I have to say that I have more than a little regret that I was never able to attend a Mingus performance. On the other hand his temper was really volatile, so those that did go to his gigs were never quite sure what might happen. Mingus was 50 when he played at Scott’s, but I doubt that age ever mellowed him. (He was only a few months shy of 57 when he died.) Recordings may be the only way to get a sense of what Mingus did and how he did it, but my knowledge of his biography reminds me that I probably would not have felt particularly comfortable in his presence!
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