jazzandbluesnews

Once you get past the horn players you usually find the piano players.  That would be my guess.  If you come into jazz with a piano player maybe you find yourself listening to the horn players.  As to what horn players you listen to, well, there is a variety.  There are jazz trumpeters and jazz saxophonists and even jazz trombonists.  There are also musicians who play the vibraphone (vibes) and I even once played tracks from a CD where the musician played jazz music using seashells.  There are jazz guitarists and jazz vocalists.  The one instrument that is key to each but rarely gets its due is the bass.

That wasn’t the case with Charles Mingus.  Charles was a big scary-looking man.  He always appears to be glowering from the album covers as if he’d kill you as soon as look at you.  That didn’t stop him from being brilliant.

Charles played that huge stand-up bass that looks like someone irradiated a violin and turned it into some string-section version of Godzilla.  You sit there and wonder how anyone could lug that thing around.  Then  you hear Charles play and you realize how versatile the instrument can be in the hands of a master.

What Charles Mingus really had a knack for was finding talent.  He put together some of the most amazing bands in jazz.  Right up until the end, when he couldn’t really stand up to play anyore, he was putting together groups of young musicians and arranging their music.  One of my all-time favorite jazz tunes is “Haitian Fight Song.”  Trust me, if you seek it out it will blow you away.

One of my other favorites of his, however, is the one that had a name that always amused us at the jazz radio station.  It’s called “Good-Bye Pork Pie Hat.”  I don’t even know for sure what a Pork Pie Hat is but the image it conjures in my head always makes me laugh.

So, here he is live in Montreaux, Charles Mingus and “Good-Bye Pork Pie Hat.”

Trackback URI | Comments RSS