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Tag: Charles Mingus

2025

Tuesday, April 22nd

Happy (103rd) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day. 

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2024

Monday, April 22nd

Happy (102nd) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2023

Saturday, April 22nd

Happy (101st) Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

reading table

This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

—Donald Justice (1925-2004), from “Poem”

*****

* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

** “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

*** “So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2022

Friday, April 22nd

Happy 100th Birthday, Charles!

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 4/22/1922–1/5/1979, bass, compositions; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), (live, Belgium,* Norway,** Sweden,*** 1964

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lagniappe

radio

All Mingus, all day (tomorrow, too): WKCR-FM (Columbia University).

*****

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

*****

*”So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations on Integration”

**”So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” “Parkeriana,” “Take The ‘A’ Train”

***”So Long Eric” (performance and rehearsal), “Meditations on Integration” (performance and rehearsal)

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2020

Thursday, October 29th

timeless

Charles Mingus Sextet (CM, 1922-1979, bass; Eric Dolphy, 1928-1964, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, 1931-1993, tenor saxophone; Johnny Coles, 1925-1987, trumpet; Jaki Byard, 1922-1999, piano; Dannie Richmond, 1931-1988, drums), “So Long Eric” (C. Mingus), live, Norway (Oslo), 1964

 

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago

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2015

Thursday, April 23rd

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Mingus!

Charles Mingus, composer, bandleader, bassist
April 22, 1922-January 5, 1979

Better late than never for someone who, like Miles and Monk, Bach and Beethoven, I couldn’t live without.

Charles Mingus (bass) with Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute), Clifford Jordan (tenor saxophone), Johnny Coles (trumpet), Jaki Byard (piano), Dannie Richmond (drums), live, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden, 1964*


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

There’s something about listening to Eric Dolphy that makes you feel glad to be alive.

—Cliff Preiss, DJ, WKCR (Columbia University), yesterday (Mingus birthday broadcast)

*****

*Set lists (courtesy of YouTube):

Belgium
00:00-00:45 Intro
00:46-05:33 So Long Eric
05:35-11:20 Peggy’s Blue Skylight
11:23-32:03 Meditations On Integration

Norway
32:30-54:46 So Long Eric
56:30-1:11:40 Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk
1:13:53-1:16:20 Parkeriana
1:16:22-1:29:05 Take The “A” Train

Sweden
1:30:05-1:33:55 So Long Eric
1:34:02-1:52:35 Meditations On Integration
1:52:40- 1:59:50 So Long Eric

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2014

Tuesday, April 22nd

Happy (92nd) Birthday, Mingus!

Charles Mingus, bassist, composer, bandleader
April 22, 1922-January 5, 1979

Charles Mingus Quintet (CM, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Booker Ervin, tenor saxophone; Ted Curson, trumpet; Dannie Richmond, drums) with guest Bud Powell (piano), “I’ll Remember April” (G. de Paul, P. Johnston, D. Raye), live, France (Antibes Jazz Festival), 1960

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lagniappe

radio

WKCR (Columbia University): all Mingus, all day.

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2012

Tuesday, 11/13/12

passings

Ted Curson, trumpeter, composer, June 3, 1935-November 4, 2012

“L.S.D. Takes a Holiday” (T. Curson), live, Paris, 1973

******

With Charles Mingus, “Better Git Hit In Your Soul,” Mingus at Antibes (recorded live 1960)*

*****

“Tears for Dolphy” (T. Curson), 1964

*****

*CM (bass, piano), Ted Curson (trumpet), Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone), Booker Ervin (tenor saxophone), Dannie Richmond (drums).

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2012

Monday, 4/23/12

Charles Mingus Quintet,* “So Long Eric,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” “Meditations On Integration” (all by Mingus), live (TV show), Belgium, 1964

Mingus’s music, it seems, has everything. Call it “simple” or “complex” and you’d be both right and wrong—it’s both. Compositional elegance is balanced, exquisitely, with improvisational unruliness. Rhythmic momentum is no less—and no more—important than melodic invention. Like Ellington and Monk, he will, I’m confident, still be listened to a hundred years from now.

(Excerpts from this program have been posted previously.)

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lagniappe

art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago

Ludovico Carracci, The Vision of Saint Francis, c. 1602

Going to the Art Institute again, after being away for a while, I felt a bit like someone who doesn’t realize he’s starving until he finds himself at a feast.

*****

*CM, bass; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums.

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2012

Sunday, 4/22/12

two takes

“Feel Like Going Home” (C. Rich)

Charlie Rich (vocals & piano), demo, 1973

*****

Tom Jones with Mark Knopfler (guitar), TV performance, 1996

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

I don’t think I ever recorded anyone who was better as a singer, writer, and player than Charlie Rich. It is all so effortless, the way he moves from rock to country to blues to jazz.

—Sam Phillips (Sun Records)

*****

radio

Happy Birthday, Charles!

All Mingus, all day: WKCR-FM.

*****

reading table

I thought that you were an anchor in the drift of the world;
but no: there isn’t an anchor anywhere.
There isn’t an anchor in the drift of the world. Oh no.
I thought you were. Oh no. The drift of the world.

—William Bronk,* “The World” (mp3 [Hudson Falls, NY, 1978], Selected Poems [1995])

***

*Bronk, who died in 1999, was recently inducted, posthumously, into the ultra-exclusive MCOTD Hall of Fame, joining tenor saxophonist Von Freeman and poet Wislawa Szymborska.

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