FTW, 5.5.2021

In the aftermath of the Trout Mask Replica project, all the other music I'm capable of playing seems kind of mundane, and I'm finding I miss the daily challenge of hearing, transcribing, and learning those parts. While I'm waiting for some other project to suggest itself, I'm trying to keep up with my running in spite of a persistent, nagging calf injury, and getting in the habit of giving Auggie, our mighty protector and overseer, twice-daily insulin shots (apparently, diabetes is not uncommon in indoor senior cats). 

Our local municipal elections resulted in a mayoral runoff between the Anointed One of the money people who pull the strings in this town (the current mayor's former chief of staff), and the retired AT&T exec and longtime Democratic party chair who, if elected, would be the first Black woman to hold the office. (I will be happy to vote for Deborah Peoples once again.) Likewise, our city council district will hold a runoff between a local whiskey maker, recently relocated from California, and a fundamentalist right winger who's been a regular presence at council meetings the last few years. (I will be holding my nose and voting for Leonard Firestone, thank you very much.) 

While turnout was better than in previous municipals, it was still only a paltry 13% of the registered voters. Hopefully, the folks who marched and prayed for George Floyd and Atatiana Jefferson, and froze their asses off and boiled water during Snowpocalypse way back in February, will make themselves more of a presence at the polls on June 5th.

The estimable saxophonist Dave Williams, whom I fondly remember essaying Charles Mingus' "Nostalgia in Times Square" many times at the old Black Dog Tavern (RIP) and elsewhere, pulled my coat to a couple of Mingus tomes of which I was previously unaware. Mingus Mingus: Two Memoirs by Al Young and Janet Coleman juxtaposes two remembrances of the titanic bassist-composer by two young acolytes who aided in the editing of his own self-mythologizing memoir Beneath the Underdog. And Gene Santoro's Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus serves as a corrective to some of Mingus' wilder fabrications (without casting aspersions on his authorship) and provides a much more well-rounded portrait of the man and musician than Brian Priestley's dry-as-dust Mingus: A Critical Biography. 

Santoro interviewed many Mingus familiars, including his sisters, fellow Watts musicians Buddy Collette and Britt Woodman, and his various ex-wives and collaborators, all of whom provide valuable perspectives. The author also touches on influences I wouldn't have previously considered, including the artist Farwell Taylor (immortalized in "Far Wells, Mill Valley" on Mingus Dynasty), the film composer Dimitri Tiomkin (for whom Mingus worked in the '40s), and filmmaker Orson Welles. He clearly did his homework and covers the vicissitudes of Mingus' tempestuous career in day-by-day detail. All of which just makes me want to hear the music again.

While I no longer feel compelled to own every note ever played by the 1964 touring band that boasted the searching multi-reedist Eric Dolphy and walking jazz piano history Jaki Byard, I've been enjoying repeated spins of the recordings of them I do still possess (the Cornell University show Blue Note released in the last decade and the two Paris concerts, one of which has been an obsession of mine since the mid-'70s, the other of which an NCO Academy student pulled my coat to when I was an Air Force instructor). The lengthy versions of "Meditations" and "Fables of Faubus" contain entire universes. 

These days, when I want to hear Mingus, I usually reach for the DVD that contains performances by the '64 band filmed for state TV in Belgium, Norway, and Sweden; it's as interesting watching the nonverbals between Mingus and his men (trumpeter Johnny Coles, drummer Dannie Richmond, and ternorman Clifford Jordan, as well as Dolphy and Byard) as it is to hear their musical interplay. But the audio-only versions are no less rewarding, and now, after reading Santoro, I'm motivated to hear earlier records I've neglected like Mingus Plays Piano and the aforementioned Mingus Dynasty.

I agree with Octavia Butler, who wrote, “First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.” So while I await inspiration's return, I'm working, albeit slowly, on building the muscle memory of the alternating bass figure I learned for "Dachau Blues," and attempting to play something like a Richard Thompson bagpipe solo with a droning D on "Marquee Moon" (although I really enjoy the interlocking parts on that song more than Tom Verlaine's lengthy ride). Speaking of alternating bass figures, last week, I played through this from Safe As Milk, relying on my shaky memory (and forgetting the last bit of the intro; wha-wha).