Charles Mingus: Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus To Pre Bird Revisited

In his liner notes for Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus To Pre Bird Revisited, Bill Shoemaker sets out the context in which the two featured albums should be considered. He observes that so enormous was Charles Mingus' artistic vision that no two (or perhaps three) albums can encompass its totality. How true that is, even of the pairing of two Mingus albums that are as different as could be: Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid, 1960) and Pre Bird (Mercury, 1961), recorded a few months apart in 1960. The first features Mingus' working quartet with Eric Dolphy, Ted Curson and Dannie Richmond; it is one of the all-time greatest discs in Mingus' catalogue. The second (later reissued as Mingus Revisited) is a big band project; it is one the lesser celebrated items in Mingus' catalogue and deserves to be better known.

The four originals which comprise Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus—"Folk Forms No. 1." "Original Faubus Fables," "What Love," "All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother"—are each classics and the performance of "Original Faubus Fables" is perhaps the best realised ever caught on disc. Previously heard as an instrumental on Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959), the track, aimed at the racist governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, here centers around impassioned lyrics written by Mingus and delivered call-and-response style by Mingus and Richmond. Another conversation on the album, this time non-verbal but no less eloquent than "Faubus," is the instrumental one between Mingus and Dolphy on "What Love."

In his highly recommended collection of factional essays, But Beautiful (Jonathan Cape, 1991), Geoff Dyer writes that Mingus' response to Amerikkkan demagoguery was to "rant back, to rush at it with all the intensity that he felt it rushing on him, two juggernauts hurtling toward each other." Never did Mingus rush at it more effectively than on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus and in "Original Faubus Fables" in particular.

The eight tracks from Pre Bird comprise six originals which were written, said Mingus, before he heard Charlie Parker. There are also two tracks which are each constructed out of two interpolating standards: "Take The A Train" c/w "Exactly Like You" and "Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me" c/w "I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart," one tune coming out of the left speaker, the other out of the right. One suspects Mingus arranged these two tracks mainly to prove he could, but the exercise has musical merit, too.

The style of Pre Bird is high-impact swing and the orchestra's lineup steps out of a dream. Dolphy, Curson and Richmond are present throughout, joined by a host of fellow luminaries including John LaPorta, Paul Bley, Booker Ervin, Joe Farrell, Yusef Lateef, Jimmy Knepper, Slide Hampton, Clark Terry and Marcus Belgrave (full lineup in Personnel below). The glacially sensuous Lorraine Cusson, one of a tiny number of singers who successfully delivered Mingus' work, is heard on "Eclipse" and "Weird Nightmare." Both are sensational.

But perhaps the most remarkable track is the closing "Half-Mast Inhibition" (check the YouTube below), written when Mingus was eighteen (so in 1939 or 1940). At 8:16 it is the longest track (most of the others are less than four minutes, one is just over that) and it is conducted by Gunther Schuller. As Schuller's presence suggests, this is Third Stream well over a decade before Schuller himself coined the name.

P.S. As on all ezz-thetics' Revisited releases, Michael Brändli's remastering of the source material is a delight in itself, adding presence to what we already know—and also revealing new details. Item: Dolphy or Curson clapping out a rhythmic motif during Mingus and Richmond's duet on "Folk Forms No. 1." Even if you have known Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus for multiple decades, and have been playing it on decent set-ups, you may have missed this—or forgotten it until prompted by Brändli's craftsmanship.

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