East Coasting

Artist: Charles Mingus
Label: Shout Factory
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 826663764529
EAN: 0826663764529
ASIN: B0009Y26SQ

Release Date: 2005-08-02

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Listmania:

My personal favorite CD's
Listen to Mingus

Tracks:

Memories Of You
East Coasting
West Coast Ghost
Celia
Conversation
Fifty-First Street Blues
East Coasting (Alternate Take 3)
Memories Of You (Alternate Take 3)

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Pre-Bird
Let My Children Hear Music
A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry
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Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus

Customer Reviews:

The Mighty Mingus.......2006-06-27

Charles Mingus was one of the great jazz composers and bassists. His career began with stints in the bands of Kid Ory and Louis Armstrong in the early `40s when he was barely out of his teens. He went on to become a monster in the jazz world, both as a musician and as a larger-than-life personality known for his anger at racial injustice and his one-man war with the music industry.

His 1959 masterpiece, Mingus Ah Um, is an essential in any jazz collection, and Pithecanthropus Erectus, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady are also required listening. East Coasting, recorded in August, 1957, is not as well known, but its resurrection as part of Shout! Factory's reissue program of classic albums from the catalog of the long defunct Bethlehem record label has its share of masterful moments, compositionally and in its arrangements, that should bring it a deserved reevaluation and overdue recognition.

Many of the standard Mingus musical tricks are on display here, from the finely crafted melodic statements to the free-flowing group improvisations. "Celia" foreshadows "Self Portrait in Three Colors" on Mingus Ah Um, the title track cooks with fine-tuned bop precision, and "West Coast Ghost" purrs with echoes of Ellington but with that cross-horn interplay so distinctive to the bassist's writing. The opening harmonies of "Conversation" are almost Oliver Nelson-ish, but devolve soon enough into the trademark phrase trading commonplace in Mingus' music.

The sextet lineup includes Mingus stalwarts Jimmy Knepper on trombone and Dannie Richmond behind the drums, while the piano chair is occupied by Bill Evans just months before he joined Miles Davis for what would be a seminal but short lived partnership ultimately yielding Kind of Blue. --Jim Newsom

Originally published in Port Folio Weekly - January 10, 2006
Copyright 2006 Port Folio Weekly. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Hipster-Style Jazz!.......2005-10-04

Charles Mingus is usually known for his wild, soulful and avant-garde compositions. "East Coasting" is mellow by comparison, but it still cooks on a musical level. The Mingus touches are there; the trombone, drummer Danny Richmond--who was so essential to the Mingus sound in Charles' Atlantic recordings-- and of course the dark emotional undercurrent looms large, too. The personnel are all Mingus regulars, except for pianist Bill Evans, who would not be described as "soulful" in the traditional sense, but his introverted and sensitive style works well with Ming's music. His playing on "West Coast Ghost" (the album's stand-out track) and "Celia" are two examples of Evans' ability to understand an artist's musical vision and play accordingly in his own beautifully original style.

As for the title of this review, it fits because "East Coasting" sounds like the prototypical 1950s Jazz recording. It's something one would hear in an attic converted to a bedroom where an artist or lonely soul might live. It's what a lot of people might believe Jazz would or should sound like. Highly recommended to Jazz lovers and perhaps more importantly- to young people who have just been blown away by Kerouac's novel "On the Road" and have become interested in exploring Jazz. "East Coasting" will allow them to get a taste of lost creative America.

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