CHARLES MINGUS — Jazz Portraits (aka Wonderland aka Jazz Portraits. Mingus In Wonderland) (review)

CHARLES MINGUS — Jazz Portraits (aka Wonderland aka Jazz Portraits. Mingus In Wonderland) album cover Live album · 1959 · Hard Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
frankbernardi22
A "classical" jazz record. Even if I should know nothing of that thing called jazz music, I'm sure the right world for all that should be "classical'. Where the adjective don't mean lifeless or frozen or totally and blindly rooted in the past. There is nothing dead in Mingus' "Wonderland" - and that is only one of the names of the record. At the same time covers are different. Very similar the first two, but the third, with a portrait of the Boss with a strange, little bit devilish face? A way to sell more copies? It's with the first graphic solution - we are in 1959 (the famous "Pithecanthropus" was released 3 years before) - that things in the grooves are better explained: Mingus, the pipe, the bass and oil on canvas. We are in an art gallery (Nonagon, NYC): there the record was captured (A. Douglas producer) and the dimension is perfect for 5 players living in the name of love and music, or so it seems. Ervin, Handy, Wyands, Mingus, Richmond. The last one, on drums, has something mildly extravagant and audacious, a mix of Williams and Jones; tenor Ervin and alto Handy seem naturally munificent, while Wyands on piano is a discreet and good friend. In front of the combo, cool and collected comments and handclaps egde the session, while Mingus, placed on right - centre gives musical orders to his men. Go and buy if you hate strange surprises, go the same if you are an intelligent son of nostalgia, and if you want to listen to the spectacular technicolored play of "No private income blues": bass'n'drums melted together to form a perfect wall of sound. Soul, technique, pleasure: it's all timeless, it's surely classic at its peak while sure footed innovation lies in the bends.
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