The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Check out this Album. Does it get any better?
    Mingus!-d221282d-80ea-4227-a392-30de4c7abf1f-jpeg

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Yes, Mingus was one of the best musicians and composers that jazz has seen by now!
    He was a frank and honest, though impulsive character, and didn't like to work with jazz guitar players, so I guess he's a bit underrated here around.




    "The jazz scene has always been cutthroat. A typical statement: 'Hey man, we have a hit on Wednesday that pays fifty cents. You cool?' " - Charles Mingus


  4. #3

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    I didn't know Mingus didn't like working with guitar players.

    Here he is with Red and Tal:


  5. #4
    Let’s not forget Larry Coryell. Anyway the OP was about a deep groove on this disk, dig?

  6. #5

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    He never hired guitar players but Norvo was the leader and Charles was new on the scene, so if he wanted a gig....
    btw, speaking of the trio, I've always loved this one w/Charlie arco spicatto [bouncing bow technique]
    sorry to get off topic there....






  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by stark
    Check out this Album. Does it get any better?
    Mingus' body of work is legendary, hard to point your finger at one late album...

  8. #7

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    Mingus behaving:



    Mingus misbehaving (what is that note he keeps playing?):


  9. #8

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    "Tijuana Gift Shop" from "Tijuana Moods," one of my favorite Mingus albums.


  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by wintermoon
    He never hired guitar players but Norvo was the leader and Charles was new on the scene, so if he wanted a gig....
    btw, speaking of the trio, I've always loved this one w/Charlie arco spicatto [bouncing bow technique]
    sorry to get off topic there....

    I believe Mingus was working as a mail carrier when Red called and asked him to join. So yea, he wanted a gig,,,, likely any gig....

  11. #10

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    According to a biography of Mingus, Jimmy Raney was his fave guitarist.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by jameslovestal
    I believe Mingus was working as a mail carrier when Red called and asked him to join. So yea, he wanted a gig,,,, likely any gig....
    Speaking of mail carriers, tenor sax player Buck Hill was one in DC. There's a large mural of him on the side of a building there. (I started a thread about it the other day called "This Postman Always Blew Twice.")

    Mingus!-buck-hill-jpg

  13. #12

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    Mingus played with Tal Farlow in the economically successful Red Norvo trio only for 12 months between 1950 and 51.

    Mingus had nothing against jazz guitarists, they just fit badly in his most favorite concept of collective improvisation.
    This is proven by his very last recordings, like 'Three or Four Shades of Blues' (1977) with Philipe Catherine, Larry Coryell and John Scofield on guitars, and 'Me Myself an Eye' (1978) with Ted Dunbar, Jack Wilkins and, again, Larry Coryell.
    On the latter recording, Mingus could no longer play bass himself for health reasons.

    'Three or Four Shades of Blues', IMO, is fabulous, though the general reception of electric guitars was not uncontroversial:
    In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said the second side on 'Three or Four Shades of Blue'
    was "the best composed bebop" he had heard in 1977, partly because Coryell and Fortune gave their most impressive performances in some time. The New Yorker found the record "subtle and funny and full of Mingus's peculiar and unmistakable authority" [well, an euphemism, because not few of his former band members said Mingus acted sometimes more like a band dictator - Ol' Fret]. AllMusic's Stuart Kremsky was less enthusiastic in a retrospective review, writing that it was not Mingus's "best work, but not without merit". He felt the title track was one of his most successful attempts at longer compositions, even though he said the electric guitars were out of place.

    charles mingus three or four shades of blues album - YouTube

  14. #13

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    Charles Mingus..a complex man ..a musician in a class with the jazz gods..many stories about him..some true..some not..

    he played with many musicians..guitarists included..

    he would surprise his fans and criticts...and work with Joni Mitchell..

    Good-bye Pork Pie Hat is what I hear when his name is mentioned

  15. #14

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    Mingus, in his own words, "never sold out or tommed with … [his] music."

    John Goodman, author of the recommendable book 'Mingus speaks':
    "So, I think in a way Mingus tested you. He tested his musicians all the time, and he'd test interviewers. He also tested the women in his relationships. It was a constant sort of process with him to see whether he could cut away the bullshit and get to the truth - I think that was a big theme in his life."

    The great saxophone player Bobby Jones who frequently had formidable fights with Mingus, to John Goodman:
    "Well, I can give you some hints. For one thing, one of his [Mingus'] pet peeves with interviewers is the racial thing. And, I've seen him do this a thousand times. If he gets the impression that someone is digging up that pile of sand and, he being a black man, they want him to say black things, he will, as soon as he senses it, go the opposite direction. And he does that with a whole flock of things. When he senses where an interviewer is going, he takes entirely the opposite side that they expect him to take."

    Mingus was one of the most outspoken and sincere musicians in jazz history. If the white American Society, still in the 1960/70s, precondemned black men being "nigger bucks", one answer of Mingus was to fully serve this cliché in his 'autobiography' "Beneath the Underdog" (1971).

    Again, Bobby Jones:
    "You never knew when he [Mingus]'s playing with you. When he senses where an interviewer is going, he takes entirely the opposite side that they expect him to take. You never knew whether he was being truthful, or he was more interested in taking part in some sort of gamesmanship with you." [ ... ]
    "Mingus was fictionalizing and role-playing through most of his life, when and as suited him: the Clown, the Baron, the King Pimp, and so forth. The real Mingus is finally as indefinable and inimitable as his music. A man whose ego moved his friends to love, anger, and performance of the impossible - just as he moved his musicians. The urgent needs he manifested constantly and sometimes acted out to his detriment were often tempered by a warmth and openess that were not always on display; Mingus was the easiest person in the world to love."

    What seems most laudable about Mingus is his sincerity. It was the music that mattered. As he put it: "If you wrap the package up and publicize it enough, you can sell a person s[hit]. Madison Avenue [the music industry] knows that, so why sell them Charlie Mingus? I don't even want to be sold now."

    My guess is that Mingus was more intellectual than most of his musician colleagues, interviewers and biz partners.
    I wouldn't have minded meeting him, and certainly also Pepper Adams ...


  16. #15
    I went out to get some sushi, sat down at the bar. Smelled something really funky, It was Max Gordon sitting next to me. Old as Methuselah. Got him to start telling me cool stories about the artists he employed. He said Mingus had a problem with the draw at the end of the night, started yelling and made it rain with all the cash. Crazy!

  17. #16

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    Mingus? Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus!



    What a great bass into!