Release
Date: 4/22/10
Jazz Workshop, Inc./Jazz Standard
"Every tune a classic, every player a master,
every tune sounding new, every player keeping the
spirit of Charles Mingus alive and swinging!"
-Michael Bourne, WBGO
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by The Orchard.
Randy Brecker, Kenny Rampton and Earl Gardner
Trumpets
Wayne Escoffery and Abraham Burton
Tenor Saxophone
Vincent Herring
Alto Saxophone
Douglas Yates
Alto, Soprano Saxophone and Flute
Lauren Sevian
Baritone Saxophone
Ku-Umba Frank Lacy and Conrad Herwig
Trombones
Earl McIntyre
Bass Trombone and Tuba
David Kikoski
Piano
Boris Kozlov
Bass
Jeff “Tain” Watts
Drums
1. Gunslinging Bird 7:31
(Arr. Steve Slagle) Solos: Vincent Herring, Boris Kozlov
and Jeff “Tain” Watts
2. New Now Know How 5:58
(Arr. Sy Johnson) Solos: David Kikoski, Randy Brecker and
Kenny Rampton
3. Self-Portrait In Three Colors 2:53
(Arr. David Berger)
4. Bird Calls 5:50
(Arr. Ronnie Cuber)
5. E’s Flat Ah’s Flat Too (Aka “Hora Decubitus”)
7:08
(Lyrics: Elvis Costello) (Arr. Sy Johnson)
Solos: Ku-Umba Frank Lacy: Vocals, Conrad Herwig and Abraham
Burton
6. Cryin’blues 7:35
(Arr. Boris Kozlov) Solos: Kenny Rampton and Ku-Umba Frank
Lacy
7. Open Letter To Duke 7:12
(Arr. Steve Slagle) Solo: Wayne Escoffery
8. Moanin’ 9:35
(Arr. Sy Johnson) Solos: Lauren Sevian and David Kikoski
9. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat 5:52
(Lyrics: Joni Mitchell) (Arr. Sy Johnson)
Solos: Ku-Umba Frank Lacy: Vocals and Wayne Escoffery
10. Song With Orange 12:23
(Arr. John Stubblefield)
Solos: Randy Brecker, Earl McIntyre, Douglas Yates and David
Kikoski
All Songs Written By Charles Mingus [Copyright Jazz Workshop,
Inc.]
On New Year’s Eve, 2008/2009, the Mingus Big Band
celebrated some of Charles Mingus’ best-known tunes
from exactly fifty years before, released in 1959 during
one of the most productive and creative periods in jazz.
On stage at Jazz Standard in New York City, NPR-WBGO broadcast
the event across the country in their annual “Toast
of the Nation.” At midnight the band broke into John
Stubblefield’s explosive arrangement of “Song
with Orange,” bringing the evening’s performance
to a close and the audience to its feet.
Just as 1939 was a year of iconic films that included movies
as diverse as Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, twenty
years later a series of classic jazz albums appeared that
showcased works by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck,
Ornette Coleman and three seminal recordings by Charles
Mingus: Mingus Ah Um, Mingus Dynasty and Blues & Roots.
Tunes like “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” “Better
Get Hit in Your Soul” and “Moanin’”
entered the American lexicon.
Today, the Mingus Big Band, one of three repertory bands
carrying on the sprawling legacy of Mingus composition,
continues its weekly presence in Manhattan which began in
1991 and continues in its current residency at Jazz Standard.
Since October 2008, Mingus Mondays has been a fixture on
the New York scene. This first recorded collaboration between
Mingus music and Jazz Standard preserves what Michael Bourne,
Master of Ceremonies that evening, hailed as one of the
best he had hosted in twenty-two years of NPR New Year’s
Eve broadcasts: “every tune a classic, every player
a master, every tune sounding new, every player keeping
the spirit of Charles Mingus alive and swinging!”
The Mingus Big Band’s concert before a sold-out crowd
showcased the wide variety of Mingus repertory and featured
dance tunes, gospel hollers, church music, lush ballads
and, of course, the blues. The recording opens with Boris
Kozlov on Charles Mingus’s lion’s head bass
introducing “Gunslinging Bird,” a tribute to
Charlie Parker (subtitle: “If Charlie Parker were
a gunslinger there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats!”)
and concludes with a drum solo by Jeff “Tain”
Watts. The title “New Now Know How” refers to
its irregularity (8 1/2 bar phrases and a 7 bar bridge)
and should be a question, according to arranger Sy Johnson.
Performed for the first time since 1959, this version features
a trumpet exchange between Kenny Rampton and Randy Brecker.
Brecker recorded with Charles Mingus on his last album and
has played in Mingus repertory bands since they first began,
thirty years ago.
Following “Self-Portrait in Three Colors” and
“Bird Calls,” trombone/vocalist Ku-umba Frank
Lacy interprets Elvis Costello’s lyrics on “Hora
Decubitus” whose title, translated from Latin, means
“Time for Bed” -seemingly a misnomer with its
fierce tempo. “Cryin’ Blues” has a new
arrangement by Kozlov for the smaller Mingus Dynasty band
and features seven of the fourteen Big Band musicians. Like
“New Now Know How,” it has not been performed
since the original recording. “Open Letter To Duke,”
an extended work, has been slightly shortened for this performance
and is followed by two of Mingus’ best known compositions:
“Moanin’” and “Goodbye Pork Pie
Hat.” “Song with Orange” concludes the
evening and Michael Bourne points out that, while routine
comments about New Year’s Eve may refer to time passing,
“what’s obvious about this night is that the
music -composed fifty and more years ago- is timeless.”
-Sue Mingus
This music was originally broadcast live on Toast Of The
Nation from NPR Music
Produced By Mark Schramm, Thurston Briscoe And Becca Pulliam
For WBGO
under the musical direction of Sue Mingus
Recording Engineers Duke Markos with David Tallacksen and
Josh Webb
Remote Facilities by Steve Remote [Aura Sonic Ltd.]
Mixing and Mastering Tom Swift [Fame Studios/Swift Kick
Productions]
Cover Illustration and CD Illustration Heewon Kim
Art Direction and Design Edgard Moscatelli [ECM Design]
Booking by Tree Lawn Artists, Inc.
Special thanks to:
Michael Bourne, Shannon Manning, Danny Meyer, Mark Maynard-Parisi,
Kenny Callaghan, Karin Matthews, Zak Shelby-Szyszko, Josh
Richholt, Rob Duguay, Martin Goodman, Andrew Haskell, Susanna
Ungaro, and Pei Chin Ho
