The flagship repertory ensemble Mingus Big Band celebrated the 100th anniversary of Mingus’ birth with The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions, its highest quality studio recording to date. Highlights include twenty-two compositions and new arrangements, vocals and narrations by Charles’ son Eric Mingus, and thirty-four first-class musicians, rotating in Mingus Big Band tradition.
Recording Dates: January 28-31, 2020 | Release Date: Oct 7, 2022
April 22, 2022, marked the 100th anniversary of Charles Mingus’ birth and Mingus fans worldwide honored his influence on the evolution of music, his incomparable life, extraordinary trailblazing career, and vital activism.
Mingus Big Band kicked off celebrations in January 2020 with The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions. Over several days at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, New Jersey, the world-renowned Mingus repertory ensemble made one of their highest quality recordings to date, featuring twenty-two compositions and never-before-recorded arrangements. Engineer Rich Keller spearheaded the recording, with sessions directed by co-leaders Alex Foster and Boris Kozlov, the latter playing Mingus’s legendary 1927 Ernst Heinrich Roth double bass.
Highlights include vocals and narrations by Charles’ son Eric Mingus and a rotating lineup of first-class musicians in Mingus Big Band tradition, enabling the recordings to feature thirty-four musicians. Nine Mingus compositions were carefully selected for this first volume.
TRACK LISTING
1. Work Song (Break The Chains) 7:23
featuring Eric Mingus
arr. Sy Johnson
Solos: Scott Robinson, Jack Walrath, Eric Mingus (lyrics and vocals)
2. The I of Hurricane Sue 7:42
arr. Sy Johnson
Solos: Alex Foster, Wayne Escoffery, Walter White
3. Intro to Nobody Knows the Bradley I Know 1:01
Words and narration Eric Mingus
4. Nobody Knows the Bradley I Know 5:46
arr. Earl McIntyre
Solos: David Kikoski, Alex Norris, Scott Robinson, Johnathan Blake
5. Meditations for Moses 8:16
arr. Boris Kozlov
Solos: Brandon Wright, Boris Kozlov
6. All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother 7:44
arr. Boris Kozlov
Solos: Wayne Escoffery, Jason Marshall, Conrad Herwig
7. Don’t Let It Happen Here 6:35
arr. Howard Johnson
Solos: Abraham Burton, Alex Foster/Renee Manning (vocals)
8. Profile of Jackie 6:49
arr. Sy Johnson
Solo: Alex Foster
9. Hobo Ho 8:22
arr. Sy Johnson
Solos: Abraham Burton, Boris Kozlov, Andy McKee, Mike Richmond
10. Intro to Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting :22
Words and narration Eric Mingus
11. Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting 3:29
arr. Sy Johnson
Solos: Earl McIntyre, David Taylor
MUSICIANS:
Trumpets
Dr. Alex Pope Norris, Philip Harper, Walter White (Tracks 1, 2, 4, 6-8, 11), Anthony Fazio (Tracks 2, 4, 5, 7, 9), Tatum Greenblatt (Track 2), Jack Walrath (Track 1), *Alex Sipiagin (Vol 2)
Alto Saxophones
Alex Foster (co-leader, flute, soprano saxophone), David Lee Jones (Tracks 6-8), Brandon Wright (Tracks 4-5), Ron Blake (Tracks 2, 9), Alex Terrier (Tracks 1, 11)
Tenor Saxophones
Abraham Burton (Tracks 2, 4-9), Scott Robinson (Tracks 1, 4, 5, 7, 11), Wayne Escoffery (Tracks 2, 6, 8), Sam Dillon (Tracks 1, 9, 11)
Vocals
Eric Mingus (Tracks 1, 3, 10), Renee Manning (Track 7), Alex Foster (Track 7)
SONG DESCRIPTIONS:
In Work Song (Break the Chains) Charles Mingus references the long tradition of call-and-response tunes sung by enslaved Black laborers, formed here into an 8-bar blues with two instruments playing the melody in canon. Added to this is a new set of lyrics and vocal line by his son Eric Mingus, offering a reassessment of hustle culture and a call to shift priorities to the work of hope and love.
The I of Hurricane Sue was initially arranged by Sy Johnson in 1971 for Mingus’ Let My Children Hear Music. A tribute then, as now, to Sue Mingus.
Nobody Knows the Bradley I Know was written with love for Bradley Cunningham, the owner of the eponymous jazz club in New York’s Greenwich Village, and a nostalgia for people, places, and city nightlife – “tonight at noon.” Preceded by a poem and narration from Eric Mingus.
Meditations for Moses derives from Mingus’s unaccompanied piano performance on his brilliant and mostly improvised Mingus Plays Piano album in 1963. Arranger Boris Kozlov expanded his transcription of the multi-themed composition to a full ensemble “mini-concerto” featuring alto saxophone and bowed bass.
All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother is a uniquely Mingusian take on the composer’s stay at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, Kozlov built this arrangement on that of the original pianoless quartet from the 1960 album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, adding a shout chorus that utilizes an Olivier Messian 9-tone scale at the bridge and a whiff of Mingus' own “Moanin'.” The arranger writes, “The melody is almost unplayable in some sense – Mingus shoots for the pronounced shape of it rather than the cleanliness of the individual notes. In his spirit we use an even faster tempo than the original! Our horn section succeeded with flying colors."
Don’t Let It Happen Here embodies a message as relevant today as it was when Martin Niemöller penned the anti-Nazi poem that inspired Mingus’s lyrics: "First they came for the Socialists..." Narration by Alex Foster and Renee Manning.
Profile of Jackie, from Pithecanthropus Erectus in 1956, when Jackie McLean played alto in Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, has been rebuilt by Sy Johnson as a expansive solo feature for altoist Alex Foster.
Hobo Ho was first conceived to feature Illinois Jacquet, then reworked for James Moody. Saxophonist Abraham Burton now carries the strong tenor tradition forward on this recording, with an additional spotlight for three of the band's veteran bassists to trade solos.
The album concludes the same way the band ends each live performance: with one of Mingus’s trademark 6/4 gospel-influenced themes, opened up for the lowest members of the brass section to do their thing. Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting is introduced with a poem and narration by Eric Mingus.
Executive Producer: Roberto Ungaro, Jazz Workshop, Inc.
Musical Direction: Alex Foster, Boris Kozlov
Engineer, Mixer, Mastering Engineer: Rich Keller
All songs written by Charles Mingus, published by Jazz Workshop, Inc., except Work Song (Break the Chains) written by Charles Mingus and Eric Mingus (Jazz Workshop, Inc./Sugnim Cire Sounds)
Record Label: Jazz Workshop, Inc. UPC: #085218003944
Distribution: Many Hats Endeavors
Jazz Workshop Production Staff: Theodore Davis, Zachary Kirsimae, Shannon Manning, Liz Torres, Sarah Williams
Album Art and Design: Ian Addison
Session Photography: Gulnara Hamatova
Thanks to: Sue Mingus, Sy Johnson, Lois Mirviss
This album is dedicated to Sy Johnson (1930-2022), a legend in music and the arts and key contributor to Mingus Music through his arrangements, photographs, research, and advocacy; to the ever-increasing generations of musicians and audiences who have added their spirit to the Mingus story; and especially to our leader NEA Jazz Master Sue Mingus (1930-2022) who devoted five decades to promoting her husband’s work. She was a force and a legend, and her passion, wisdom, and energy guides everything we do. Let My Children Hear Music!
The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions - Release Date October 7, 2022
