[Dixielandjazz] Mingus' "Epitaph"

[Steve Barbone]

CAVEAT - NOT OKOM.

But a couple of tenuous links to OKOM. Mingus started as a Dixieland
bassist, but ended up as an avant garde composer/player. The piece described
here is very complicated and difficult to perform. But then, it includes
some musical references to Jelly Roll Morton. Mingus knew the musical roots.

Those who like what Mingus did with his life will enjoy this article.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Wrestling a Jazz Giant¹s Masterwork Into Shape

NY TIMES - By BEN RATLIFF - April 27, 2007

³Epitaph,² Charles Mingus¹s two-hour suite for 31 musicians, is famous for
its unwieldiness. It is long, intensive and complicated. Parts of it were
performed at a doomed Town Hall concert in 1962, and all of it was played
posthumously in 1989, after the sheet music was found among Mingus¹s papers,
at a successful but still nerve-racking concert at Lincoln Center. On
Wednesday night ³Epitaph,² made still bigger by new material, had its third
New York iteration, at Jazz at Lincoln Center¹s Rose Theater. It started
shakily, but by the end it had made its case.

Above all, ³Epitaph² is packed with melodies. Parts of it became well known
before 1989, through Mingus¹s recordings with smaller bands, including
³Better Git Hit in Your Soul² and ³Peggy¹s Blue Skylight.² Sometimes outside
composers¹ music floats through its sections in mutated form ‹ including
Jelly Roll Morton¹s ³Wolverine Blues,² Thelonious Monk¹s ³Well, You Needn¹t²
and Vernon Duke¹s ³I Can¹t Get Started.² Some other sections, more
associated solely with ³Epitaph,² are stubborn with originality.

³The Children¹s Hour of Dream,² which comes in the middle of the second half
of the concert, was a good example. It is a strong synthesis of classical
composition and jazz, full of ominous rumblings, orchestrated-brass
brayings, sweet and sour reed-section harmonies, and written parts for two
classical percussionists. On Wednesday it was a complicated task beautifully
executed.

As opposed to most ambitious long-form works in jazz, a great deal of
³Epitaph² was extremely well practiced. Most of the musicians on Wednesday
have been involved in either the Mingus Big Band, the Mingus Orchestra or
Mingus Dynasty, three groups overseen by the composer¹s widow, Sue Mingus.
And so they have had years to develop some of the more difficult pieces ‹ if
only in more slimmed-down arrangements ‹ and to smooth their edges. Such was
the case with ³The Children¹s Hour of Dream² and the ballad ³Noon Night.²

But some other parts ran into trouble, especially during the first half of
the concert. There were rough patches when the music was most full of
incident: shifts or overlappings between melodic strains; parts skidding to
a stop, tempos picking up gradually, constant cross-talking between
extreme-register instruments. The trouble wasn¹t so surprising in a band
this big: two pianists, two bassists (Christian McBride and Boris Kozlov), a
drummer and two percussionists, not to mention bassoon, contrabass clarinet
and tuba. 

But more to the point, it wasn¹t so surprising in music so unusual for jazz,
veering between blues language, Ives-like polytonality and tone poems with
fast phrases and vertiginous jumps in register made to challenge good
musicians. 

The trumpeters Lew Soloff and Jack Walrath, from the 1989 version of
³Epitaph,² were in the 31-piece band; so was the conductor, Gunther
Schuller, who had an important role in shaping that full premiere.

Some further reconstructive work has been done since then. The dark, thorny
³Inquisition,² adapted from a piece in the original ³Epitaph² called ³Moods
in Mambo,² was newly woven in, as well as another Mingus piece, ³This
Subdues My Passion.² And with few other changes from the 1989 version ‹
³Better Git Hit in Your Soul² was performed here with full orchestra,
whereas a sextet played it back then ‹ a complicated and occasionally
brilliant piece of jazz repertory saw another day, and became a little more
venerable.

³Epitaph² will be performed again tonight in Cleveland, on May 16 in Los
Angeles and on May 18 in Chicago. Details can be found at
mingusmingusmingus.com.