feature photo: Hans Kumpf
Jazz’s greatest bass legend Charles Mingus has been dead for more than 43 years and it would be reasonable to expect that we’ve heard all of his worthwhile recorded output by now. Turns out, there was entire album by him that sat in his widow’s vault all these years and in April 2022, it was finally released to the public nearly fifty years after its originally intended release.
The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s is the album recorded live at London’s famed jazz club in 1972 and was slated for release sometime in 1973. But a massive purge of Columbia’s jazz roster in the spring of that year scotched those plans, and the tapes sat in Sue Graham Mingus’ vault for decades after her husband’s 1979 death. Learning of the existence of these extraordinary recordings from Sue, Resonance Records boss Zev Feldman worked with the widow for a decade to finally accord this album a proper – and properly mixed and mastered – release.
Like Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Mingus bands were incubators for succeeding generations of jazz leading lights. A teenaged Jon Faddis (trumpet) was in this band, as was Charles McPherson from almost a generation earlier (and had been in Mingus’ band on-and-off for a dozen years). Faddis brought the Dizzy while McPherson brought Yardbird. Another saxophonist, Bobby Jones, had been around even longer, but his early 70’s tenure in Mingus’ band marked the high water mark of his career. But Jones was very versatile and capable; he belonged here. The rhythm section featured John Foster on piano – of whom almost nothing is known about other than his brief time in Mingus’ band – and the eminent drummer from Detroit Roy Brooks.
The sheer length of some of these performances – a trio of them lasting around half an hour long – makes me wonder how the vinyl release could have happened without a lot of compression, editing or breaking up single tracks onto two sides. As this was always intended to be an album, however, the eight-track engineering rendered a fantastic audio document of these gigs made over two nights in August, 1972. There are even a couple of edits Mingus made for the album to cover up some imperfections and thanks to co-producer David Weiss’ seamless editing work, you can’t tell there were any patches.
The thick accompanying booklet contains fascinating details surrounding this record from Feldman and noted Mingus biographer Brian Priestly. And Feldman interviews other noted bass men Eddie Gomez and Christian McBride for their reflections on the giant who preceded them. There are also recollections from McPherson and others.
The episodic and jaunty “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blues” provides a fantastic showcase for the band individuals, a thirty-five minute epic broken down into two or three minute distinct segments featuring a different band member. Faddis in particular is in great form. Foster and Mingus have their own section where they converse together almost telepathically. Later there’s another compelling exchange that also involves McPherson.
“Noddin’ Ya Head Blues” is, of course, a blues, but Mingus’ virtuosity on bass is on resplendent display at the beginning of this performance, where it manages to be both very blues and very unhackneyed. Following that is Foster crooning the blues authoritatively, like as if he’s a singer first and pianist second. But then he proceeds to play the piano with a lot of command. The final surprise comes when Brooks plays a musical saw, which seemed to amuse the crowd.
“Mind-Readers’ Convention In Milano (Aka Number 29)” was intended to be introduced on the stillborn album, so it’s here where the world at large are beholding this for the first time. It’s just as inventive, twisty and full of character as a song from Mingus’ classic time, one that could have worked great in a large band setting but the arrangement in this presentation does a great big band imitation. Brooks caps off this series of wonderful individual and group performances with a powerhouse drum exhibition.
BY contrast, “Fables of Faubus” was already an old standard of his by this time, but here it charges out of the gate in a galloping tempo. Later, we get a fuller view of Jones’ abilities as a tenor player, making one think he should have attained greater heights in his career.
Charlie Parker’s “Ko Ko (Theme)” is the essence of bebop condensed into thirty seconds. The Benny Goodman/Charlie Christian proto-bop tune “Air Mail Special” does pretty much the same in a slightly longer time span.
Unlike the other extended performances that swing sporadically, “The Man Who Never Sleeps” swings throughout; Jones is heard on clarinet and it sounds just right for this tune. Mingus follows with his own solo that has a certain loveliness to it, an adjective that really can’t be ascribed to all but very few other bassists.
Foster’s halfway credible impersonation of Louis Armstrong’s gravelly vocal is the first thing that stands out on “Pops (Aka When The Saints Go Marching In),” but don’t miss Mingus getting down on slap bass, either. Everyone in the band is rightfully treating this song like a party.
Lamentably, those good times wouldn’t last much longer with this lineup of Mingus’ sextet. Within a week, Jones and Faddis had left and McPherson wasn’t far behind. Foster stayed in Europe and died far too young four years later. But the rejuvenation of Mingus’ career was on. From that time on, people paid closer attention to him than when he made all those masterpieces in the late 1950s through mid ’60s.
Just weeks past the 100th anniversary of his birth at this writing, people are still discovering the mad genius of Charles Mingus. With the blessed release of The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s, there is now a significant new addition to his catalog to discover and marvel at.
The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s is now available, through Resonance Records.
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