Jazz Composer Charles Mingus
The Legendary Recording of the 1962 New York Town Hall Concert
Jan 15, 2008
The Charles Mingus New York Town Hall concert of 1962 was a very confused event that ended with 2 stage hands - during an impromptu encore based on Ellington's 'In a Mellowtone' - walking on stage and, to a howl of disapproval from the audience, pulling the curtains shut as the musicians played. That event - which seemed to some to be an overtly political act - has now gone down in jazz lore (in similar fashion to the 1938 Benny Goodman concert at Carnegie Hall) as a seminal moment in the history of jazz, even if the music was at times ragged and ill-formed.
Concert or Recording Session?
British writer Charles Fox, in his liner notes for the 1963 United Artists LP writes,
"There was, for a start, a misapprehension about the actual nature of the event. The audience arrived expecting a concert that was - almost incidentally, as it were - going to be recorded. Indeed the musicians came on stage wearing black ties, and Toshiko Mariano, a wisp of a girl pianist, was dressed in an evening gown. Charlie Mingus [he was called 'Charlie' back then] however, was under the impression that it was to be primarily a recording session - with the inevitable series of 'takes' and all the informality this implies."
So the DJs came off, and the ties, musicians lit cigarettes as Mariano slipped into slacks and a blouse while two copyists, in deep discussion with Mingus - wearing jeans and a sweater - broke down the score into individual parts. It was going to be a long night for all concerned.
The Music
The music recorded that chilly October night just over 45 years ago is extraordinarily idiosyncratic, and instantly recognisable as the work of Charles Mingus. And although hugely influenced by Ellington (and Mingus played alongside Ellington on more than one occasion) it is nonetheless extremely individual in its emotions and direction, not least in its 'political' content, that, at times, seems proudly overt in places, yet swingingly covert in others.
Mingus, the Musical Equivalent of Jackson Pollock
Mingus' music can quite easily be compared with the art of Jackson Pollock, not least in the harsh and edgy overlay and build-up of sound colours, and the oddly out-of-sync time signatures that gives Mingus' music its unique quality and depth of character that also makes it exasperating. But with repeated listenings (as with repeated viewings of Pollock's work) his music becomes wonderfully enriching.
The Musicians
The band that Mingus put together included such stalwarts of the Ellington Orchestra as trumpeter Clark Terry, and trombonist Britt Woodman, plus be-pop baritone saxist Pepper Adams, and play-anything tenorman Zoot Sims, all of whom were teamed-up with the new avant-garde reed kid on the block Eric Dolphy. A combination that created hard, edgy, under rehearsed, yet extremely powerful music. Hugely modern, hugely influential.
A recording of the complete concert is now available on CD.
Sources
Charles Fox's liner notes for the 1963 United Artists LP Charlie Mingus - Town Hall Concert.
Whitney Balliet's American Musicians, Oxford University Press, 1986.
