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Charles Mingus - Mingus at Antibes Audio CD

A fair review of the Charles Mingus "Mingus at Antibes" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Charles Mingus reviews here, or go back to the Charles Mingus tabs.

Charles Mingus Band: Charles Mingus
Title: Mingus at Antibes
Rating:
Release Date: 2008-01-13
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting 2: Prayer for Passive Resistance 3: What Love? 4: I'll Remember April 5: Folk Forms, No. 1 6: Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul

go ahead and take your socks off now...
Mingus drives the band and the music along like he's working a grinding wheel, honing the sound to a razor-thin edge that cuts through every bit of the commercial nonsense that has been (and continues to be) marketed as jazz. This is without a doubt one of the truly `essential' recordings of our time - jazz or otherwise. This is a no-holds-barred full-frontal musical assault on the audience (lucky to be present) and the listener (fortunate to be able to hear this historic concert again and again) - but that doesn't mean that it's void of melody, rhythm, substance, foundation, or - least of all - spirit. This is an imminently listenable and completely enjoyable, totally enthralling performance, with everyone involved pushed by CM to give their all, the best they have to offer, and then some.

Envelope-busting? WHAT envelope? There's nothing left but shreds of pre-conceptions. Get this immediately, put it on, and TURN IT UP.

If you haven't already done so, dive into the individual work of the players here. Dolphy and Powell are well-known, as are Ervin and Richmond. Ted Curson a little less so, but get his TEARS FOR DOLPHY and PLENTY OF HORN recordings and you'll be amazed at the depth and quality of his composition, playing and arrangements. Some of the Amazon listings show them as 'discontinued', but if you look around both here and online, you'll find them, usually at reasonable prices.
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Classic
When he returned to roots, the roots were unadulerated. Charles Mingus made some of jazz's most complex music--listen to Black Saint and Sinner Lady or the two Changes albums--but loved blues and gospal. This CD is proof.

"Wendsday Night Prayer Meeting" and "Prayer For Passive Resistance" are unapologetic twelve bar blues. Both showcase call and response shouting and playing Mingus heard as a church boy. This concert was in 1960, but could have been in a 1932 Baptist chapel

"I Remember April" is more complex, a be-bop standard. But it has the same rural, campfire meeting feel. It is amazing: no matter how sophistacted a Mingus compositions got, his bass lines stayed spare and blusey. Clean as a babtized baby.

More than most, Mingus' jazz functions on pure emotion. This album creates a mood and maintains it. This is a classic concert by a master and his magic appentices.

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April Rains Song
Many years later I tried to make up for it. I was a year and twelve days when my parents oblivious to Antibes missed this concert in Juan-les-Pins.
Darn swingless student parents starting off in forgotten corners with nothing but shoestrings. Cause it was clearly happening in Antibes.

If you want a nice live album from a place with spirits that touch you, real lyrical ones, percussively cool, this would be the one I'd pull out for that certain April birthday. If you were considering giving a gift that would be a gift, and worth the effort to try to wrap it up for your heart beat, click on.

I, personally, love Antibes. So, if I could walk, which I can't, I would go there and chill in july and catch the jazz again. Man. This work takes you there. And I'd do it with no regrets.
It's so now, so fresh. I find that remarkable. Listening this early evening is walk enough. It is alive, oddly enough. Really .


Best live Mingus that I've heard
The band is on fire pretty much throughout. Charles Mingus takes a quintet (plus Bud Powell on one song) through a top-notch set on this CD. The only exception is "What Love?" which I don't like as much as the others. Ted Curson plays his heart out on trumpet, Eric Dolphy is his usual off-center self, and Booker Ervin is good form. Bud Powell doesn't just sit in on "I'll Remember April", his long solo is the centerpiece of the song. "Folk Forms" ends with yells and saxes sounding like Indian war calls. I'm sure the "Better Git Hit", the closer, had the audience rolling down the aisle speaking in tongues (or at least in French).

Any Mingus fan should buy this CD. Maybe the only two better are "Mingus Ah Um" and "Blues & Roots". They were recorded in 1959, this was recorded in 1960 - it was obviously a high point in his career.


Mingus' live classic
The group is a quintet, including key Mingus associates like the legendary Eric Dolphy and tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin (who played on Mingus Ah Um). One of the several Mingus works I'd describe as near-essential, not to mention probably his greatest live album ever. You'd expect this to have a free-jazz influence, given Dolphy's presence, but that's not prominent (though it certainly shows up on "Better Get It In Yo' Soul", more specifically Dolph's playing): this leans more towards Mingus' rootsy, gospel-blues approach to jazz. There are even two takes on standards ("What Love?", a slightly revised "What Is This Thing Called Love?"; "April in Paris", which feels very out-of-place and is easily the weakest song on the album). Most of that are Mingus' gospel-blues concert standards like "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting"; "Folk Forms Number 1" and "Better Get It In Yo' Soul" - all are played with Mingus' characteristic enthusiasm, all reveal the man's compositional brilliance, and the former is the album's top song, though "What Love?" deserves top honors too for the bass solo alone. If that weren't enough for you, the playing on this album is superb: just listen to the sax solo on "Better Get It In Yo' Soul"! Antibes isn't my favorite Mingus album like it used to be, but it's still a key part of the man's huge catalogue. .


You can see a complete list of all Charles Mingus discography, or go back to the Charles Mingus tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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