Charles Mingus' "Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts"

Producer extraordinaire Zev Feldman has been the mastermind behind Resonance Records' incredible run of archival jazz releases, a series marked by impeccable audio engineering and painstaking historical scholarship. Sonny Rollins' Rollins in Holland and Freedom Weaver (The 1959 European Tour Recordings), Charles Mingus' The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's, and Sun Ra's Lights On a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank are just a few of the titles, but you get the idea. Previously unheard recordings of jazz with the immediacy of a live performance, in the best fidelity modern technology can provide, thoughtfully annotated by knowledgeable scribes. What's not to dig?

The set in question today, Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts, is one with particular significance for your humble chronicler o' events, because it's a rare live document of the band (with one substitution) that I saw at Stony Brook on November 13, 1976, when I was only a couple of years into jazz fandom but had had my mind blown by Mingus sides like Mingus Presents Mingus, Town Hall Concert, and especially The Great Concert of Charles Mingus. (For years, I'd buy any recording of the 1964 touring band with Eric Dolphy and Jaki Byard; the DVD and YouTube availability of concert footage of that band was a major event in my life.) 

I'd also dug more current Mingus -- Changes Two but not One (my record budget was definitely finite, even with an employee discount from the hipi record store in my town) and Three or Four Shades of Blues (which had fusion-associated cats like Larry Coryell, John Scofield, and Sonny Fortune in the large ensemble playing Mingus repertoire) -- but I wasn't quite sure what to expect when my buddies and I made our way to the Union auditorium on the SUNY Stony Brook campus. 

Sam Rivers opened in a trio with Bob Stewart and Bobby Battle, and I've read that he actually sat in with the Mingus band during the late show (we caught the early, being working lads). Then Mingus hit with a quintet that included newcomer Ricky Ford on tenor, veteran Jack Walrath on trumpet, Walter Norris (who'd played on Ornette's Something Else! and whom I mistook for Jimmy Rowles, who'd played on Three or Four Shades -- all look same?) on piano, and Mingus' ultimate accompanist Dannie Richmond on drums (returned to the fold for the final run after a sojourn in rock with Mark-Almond). And Mingus, who seemed subdued compared to the fireball on The Great Concert. 

They played a set that comprised three Changes numbers ("For Harry Carney," "Remember Rockefeller at Attica," and "Sue's Changes") and a quick homage to Charlie Parker (the heads to "Ko-Ko" and "Cherokee"). While diminished, the titanic composer-bassist was still formidable, and the set had an elegiac air, as though he was glimpsing mortality. A year later, he'd be diagnosed with ALS, which took his life on January 5, 1979.

On Mingus in Argentina, Norris is replaced behind the 88s by Bob Neloms, who played on the last four Mingus albums for Atlantic. The setlist on the three LP/two CD set (to be released April 12 and 18, respectively) is more expansive than the one we heard at Stony Brook, and the band has benefited from playing the tunes together for another half a year. It's a sign of the times that "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is introduced as having been covered by Jeff Beck. That tune, "Noddin' Ya Head Blues," and "Three or Four Shades of Blues" sound better to these feedback-scorched ears in these compact quintet versions than they did in the studio, encumbered by rock-inflected guitars. 

The Changes tunes here -- "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," "For Harry Carney," and an epic "Sue's Changes" -- lean toward the Ellingtonian side of Mingus' musical intelligence. Ford in particular shines in his virtuoso solo spot on "Sue's Changes," proving himself to be a worthy successor to Booker Ervin and Clifford Jordan in the tenor chair (and even adding some multiphonics as George Adams might have) while his bandmates vocalize their approval. The two brief Mingus piano improvs tip his hat to Duke in the same way the two Parker themes do to Bird.

"Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" includes the memorable "Who said Mama's little baby likes shortnin' bread" sequence that we used to sing the way we also sang the lyrics to "Original Faubus Fables," as though they were pop hits -- a reminder that Mingus' racial consciousness remained strong throughout his life. The quintet gets a remarkably full sound for a small unit, a credit to the composer's orchestral ear. They swing hard, and everyone digs deep for their solo statements. "Fables of Faubus" itself gets a rousingly raucous rendition, and remains sadly topical ("Boo Nazi fascist supremists" indeed). Mingus solos agilely and inventively, demonstrating that his virtuosity was still intact near the end of his touring career. He and Richmond complete each other, like different sides of the same brain.

It's thrilling to have this document of a great but underappreciated Mingus band. One wonder what other unheard gems Feldman and Resonance have up their sleeves. Their handiwork remains the best thing (in this writer's opinion) about Record Store Day. So there.