Sax – Craig Handy
Sax – Brandon Wright
Trumpet – Philip Harper
Trombone – Robin Eubanks
Drums – Adam Cruz
Bass – Boris Kozlov
Piano – Jim Ridl

April 26 – Torino, Italy: with Big Band at Piazza Valdo Fusi
http://www.torinojazzfestival.it

April 27 - Mantova, Italy: Auditorium Monteverdi – Conservatorio di Mantova
http://www.mantovajazz.it/

April 28 – Vignola, Italy
http://www.vignolajazzclub.it

April 30 – Ferrara, Italy
http://www.jazzclubferrara.com

May 1 – Milan, Italy: Blue Note Milano
http://www.bluenotemilano.com/

Hope to see you there!

Trumpets:

Jack Walrath (Mingus Alum)

Kenny Rampton

Philip Harper

Saxophones:

Alex Foster

Scott Robinson

Brandon Wright

Wayne Escoffery

Ronnie Cuber (Mingus Alum)

Trombones:

Frank Lacy

Luis Bonilla

Dave Taylor

Howard Johnson (Mingus Alum)

Drums:

Adam Cruz

Bass:

Boris Kozlov

Piano:

Jim Ridl

Congratulations to all the Finalists!

On Sunday, February 17th, competition finalists gathered to honor the memory and music of Charles Mingus.  Each band gave a commendable performance and displayed incredible heart and dedication.  Adjudicators considered rhythm, improvisation, interpretation, musicianship, and “Mingus Spirit” in their evaluations.

2013 Mingus Awards

Best Big Band

Non-specialized:  Boston Latin School Big Band

Specialized:  SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Orchestra

Best Combo

Non-Specialized:  Rio Americano Minguys Jazz Combo

Specialized:  SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Combo

Mingus Spirit Award

Batterman Ensemble, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music

Outstanding Combo Arrangement

O.P. & Nostalgia in Times Square:  Coleman Hughes, Newark Academy Combo

Outstanding Sections

Sax Section – Lexington High School Big Band

Sax Section – Tulsa Jam’bassadors All-City Band

Outstanding Soloists

Alexa Dumont – Bass – Foxboro High School

Noah Harrington – Bass – Lexington High School

Logan Kane – Bass – SFJAZZ

Kanoa Mendenhall – Bass – SFJAZZ

Jonathan Haywood – Drums – Tulsa Jam’bassadors All-City Band

Garrett Parrish – Drums – Lexington High School

Elena Pinderhughes – Flute – SFJAZZ

Scott Veilleux – Guitar – Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts

Joey Cozza – Piano – Rio Americano Minguys Jazz Combo

Peter Garofolo – Piano – Wisconsin Conservatory of Music

Kaze Mauser – Piano – Tulsa Jam’bassadors All-City Band

Julius Rodriguez – Piano – MSM Precollege

Sam Hart – Saxophone – MSM Precollege

Julian Lee – Saxophone – MSM Precollege

Emery Mesich – Saxophone – Rio Americano Minguys Jazz Combo

Nathan Rice – Saxophone – Newark Academy

Coleman Hughes – Trombone – Newark Academy

Willens Jean-Jules – Trumpet – Boston Latin School

Andrew Stephens – Trumpet – Rio Americano Minguys Jazz Combo

Liam Werner – Trumpet – MSM Precollege

FINALISTS:

Rio Americano Minguys Combo
Foxboro High School Jazz Combo
Newark Academy Combo
SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Combo
Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Jazz Ensemble 3
Batterman Ensemble, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music
MSM Precollege Combo
Boston Latin School Big Band
Lexington High School Big Band
Newark Academy Big Band “Chameleon”
SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Orchestra
Tulsa Jam’bassadors All-City Band
MSM Precollege Big Band

This year, Sue Mingus offered the opportunity to play on Charles’ own legendary Lion’s Head bass in the Competition!

Said Mingus himself: “On stage, I could feel the presence of my musicians like they were touching me…. I just wish I could give you that picture, that moment at Monterrey along with the music.”

Patrick Jarenwattananon of NPR says “It’s a monumental example of how a jazz great dedicated his life to his art… We hear humor… We hear protest… A lot happened in and around Charles Mingus’ career around 1964-65… it’s no stretch to say you can hear it all in the music he made then.”

This collection can be found on the Mosaic website.

Stretching from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, the inclusive 10-CD set includes such masterpieces as Tijuana Moods (1957) (now 2 CDs); Mingus Ah Um (1959), Mingus Dynasty (1959), Alternate Takes (1959), Let My Children Hear Music (1971) and the double disc, Charles Mingus And Friends In Concert (1972), as well as Epitaph (1989). The booklet features photos from recording sessions, and liner notes by Sue Mingus!

Click here if you can’t view on YouTube

“Mingus’s holiday eggnog was a concoction so delicious and mind-blowing, you would do anything to make sure that you saw him at Christmas.  Over the phone once, he gave me the recipe.”
– Janet Coleman

With holidays coming up, we decided to share Charles Mingus’s rapturous, if potentially deadly, recipe for Christmas eggnog.  In the interest of simplicity, we offer a slightly more sober rendition than the one provided by Janet Coleman in her book. (If you want the whole run-down, word for word, you can get the original by ordering  ”Mingus/Mingus: Two Memoirs” by Janet Coleman & Al Young, on Amazon.)

There’s plenty of room for improvising!
Happy holidays
– Sue Mingus

1 egg per person
2 sugar cubes per egg
one shot of 151 proof Jamaican rum per person
one shot of brandy (or Bourbon) per person
some milk (amount not specified)
cream (amount not specified)
vanilla ice cream
fresh nutmeg – lots

mix milk & egg yolks in bowl
add rum very very gradually or it will burn eggs
add brandy
add whipped egg whites
add whipped cream
add fresh grated nutmeg
Stir
Add ice cream to keep eggnog cold!

On second thought, after looking at the dull facts above, am including the original below!
(Janet Coleman just wrote:  ”Ha ha — nothing like the ambiguity of the real thing!  I don’t think he wanted anyone else to make as good an eggnog as his!”)

THE REAL THING

* Separate one egg for one person.  Each person gets an egg.
* Two sugars for each egg, each person.
* One shot of rum, one shot of brandy per person.
* Put all the yolks into one big pan, with some milk.
* That’s where the 151 proof rum goes.  Put it in gradually or it’ll burn the eggs,
* OK. The whites are separate and the cream is separate.
* In another pot– depending on how many people– put in one shot of each, rum and brandy. (This is after you whip your whites and your cream.)
* Pour it over the top of the milk and yolks.
* One teaspoon of sugar.  Brandy and rum.
* Actually you mix it all together.
* Yes, a lot of nutmeg.  Fresh nutmeg.  And stir it up.
* You don’t need ice cream unless you’ve got people coming and you need to keep it cold.  Vanilla ice cream.  You can use eggnog.  I use vanilla ice cream.
* Right, taste for flavor.  Bourbon? I use Jamaica Rum in there. Jamaican Rums. Or I’ll put rye in it.  Scotch. It depends.
See, it depends on how drunk I get while I’m tasting it.

–Charles Mingus

Jazz Standard welcomes 2013 with a roof-raising gala performance by the Mingus Big Band in the Grammy Award–winning group’s first New Year’s Eve appearance since 12/31/2008. Critics have been raving about the Mingus Big Band ever since it launched in 1991 under the direction of Sue Mingus. “The Mingus Big Band, musician for musician, is one of the most spirited and technically gifted bands in the country,” said the Seattle Examiner, while the New York Daily News hailed “an astonishingly tele­pathic ensemble.” The Los Angeles Times described “a spirited blend of the lush harmonies and boister­ous blues sections, interwoven ensemble passages and sudden tempo shifts that made the late bassist Charles Mingus one of the most challenging and celebrated artists in jazz.” Jazz Standard with the Mingus Big Band is the place to be on New Year’s Eve 2012!  Visit the Jazz Standard website to purchase tickets online, or call (212) 576-2232.

Ticket purchase is all-inclusive and guarantees admission to the show and a 3-course feast of award-winning Blue Smoke barbecue. (beverages not included)

From NPR:

July 24, 2008 – As creative chair for jazz at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, bass player Christian McBride gets to program four concerts a year. The moment he got the job, he put Charles Mingus’ monumental, 2 1/2-hour jazz symphony “Epitaph” at the top of his list.

“When you hear Mingus’ music, that’s about as advanced as you can get,” McBride says. “But it’s always rooted — it’s always coming out of that real indigenous black tradition. I’m talking about, like, work songs and gospel, you know, all the way up through Ellington, all the way up through the strife of the ’60s. All of that is in his music.”

Jazz historian and composer Gunther Schuller conducted the entire concert in front of a 31-piece jazz orchestra. He says that Charles Mingus was a man of many moods — and that he sees them in the very fabric of Mingus’ masterpiece.

“I knew him quite well,” Schuller says. “He could be as gentle as a baby, and he could also be so full of tantrums and explosive and angry, and all of this range of feelings is in this piece. It’s all there: It’s like a musical picture of Mingus’ personality — from the most beautiful gentle ballads, lyric pieces, to these extremely chaotic, disorganized, wild pieces.”

By the time “Epitaph” premiered in 1962, Mingus was already well-known as a composer, bandleader, and virtuoso bass player, a musician who had worked with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Duke Ellington, among others. But how Mingus came to write the piece remains something of a mystery.

Gunther Schuller says Mingus probably composed most of the piece over a three-year period in the late ’50s. He scored it for a 31-piece double jazz orchestra, and got an all-star group to play it. But the first performance was a travesty.

“There’s this famous, legendary disastrous concert and recording session in Town Hall [in New York], where I happened to be present,” Schuller says. “And it was one of the most chaotic and frustrating and disastrous concerts that anybody has ever heard, because the music was so difficult and so strange. He hadn’t had a chance to rehearse it properly and the copyists were, indeed, even still copying some of the music –- it wasn’t even fully ready. And so the musicians couldn’t handle it, and so eventually the concert was aborted when the union stage crew said, ‘Wait a minute, it’s midnight, we’ve gotta stop this.’”

Distraught, Mingus never visited the score again in his lifetime. But 10 years after his death in 1979, the score — four feet high and 4,235 measures long — was discovered in a closet in his apartment. Composer and arranger Andrew Homzy reconstructed it, and Schuller conducted the premiere in 1989. According to Schuller, the work was titled “Epitaph,” because a few movements in the score had that word in block letters.

Astonishingly, when the enormous score for “Epitaph” was found, it was missing one thing -– a finale. So Schuller says that he and the band improvised one, using Mingus as a guide.

“I decided, in putting this piece together, that we should do what he did so many times in his own appearances at clubs with his groups –- that is to say, he dictated an ending,” he says. “And he would cue everybody: What they should do and when they play and be hollering and playing on his bass at the same time. And so we did something like that for the entire orchestra.”

Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall is an eclectic mix of concert specials, recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and hosted by Renee Montagne. From singer-songwriters to classical, world music, and Broadway stars, it’s a celebration of the diversity of our thriving musical culture.

One of Mingus’ most difficult works, “Children’s Hour of Dream,” comes to life in the Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps!