Customer Reviews

Complete Town Hall Concert

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

most mingus fans don't like 'town hall concert'. they use words like 'unfocused' and 'rambling' and 'dull'. it does ramble, and it does lose focus sometimes, in the same way the best stories wander and explore little side-alleys on the way to the finish.

why take the shortest route between two points?

the compositions do lead in aimless directions. changing tempo at seemingly unnecessary times. the horns and strings are indeed 'out of sync' often. the uninitiated will think this is no better than a high school concert band.

but the attraction, for me, is that the players fall out of time, and then are able to fall back in while i'm still digesting the oddities.

it's a mainstay for me, but probably not a good choice for someone who's never heard mingus.

This is one strange album that is always interesting, even when the sounds don't quite make it. At worse, you'll be reminded of an overly enthusiastic high school marching band, with its blazing horns that don't seem to fit what the rest of what's being playing. Other times, the rambunctious horns give this a nice swinging big band sound, and Danny Richmond's drumming sounds big and wild--almost like Gene Krupa.

It's a very Ellington-oriented album, though it's like Ellington ground up with Stravinsky: The instrumentation and orchestration often remind one of Ellington but the tempo shifts, the juxtaposition of phrases, and Mingus' indelible stamp give an almost psychedelic flavor to some of the proceedings. Other cuts are more conventional. The two parts of "Freedom," featuring Mingus' beautiful unique (and I think, beautiful) voice, are outstanding.

This session is famous for Mingus' exiting the "workshop" in disgust, and Clark Terry's "In a Mellotone" bringing the musicians backstage again. However, you can't discern that from this recording. As good (and bad-but-interesting) as this is, I can't give it the same category as "Ah Um," "Oh Yeah," etc., but it deserves a much better reputation than most give it.

No matter what you do in life, we all know the feeling of having a 'bad day' or a 'bad night'. This was Mingus 'bad night'. Unfortunately, it was recorded and released. Tha band was not familiar with the material, and you can hear it here. There are good moments, specially when Dolphy and Clark Terry takes solos, but it is a difficult listen. Mingus fans need this of course, but if you want to listen to a good symponic Mingus go listen to 'Black Saint and sinner lady' and if you want a good live Mingus go get 'Mingus at Antibes'.

"The Complete Town Hall Concert" also known as "Epitaph" was to designed to be a larger than life jazz symphonic masterpiece, but ultimately it was a failure. There is a lack of cohesion to the performance, the musicians seem lost at times, and Mingus' compositions are uncharacteristically dull at many points. Even the posthumous tribute/remake "Epitaph" fell short of expectations. It was an ambitious project, but one that you can feel free to pass on.

OK, I've heard worse music, but for the standards of CHARLES MINGUS I'm used to, this is a disaster... I have read about a catastrophic Town Hall concert before and decided to stay away from that album, but with time I forgot what was the name and place of the concert (and of the album)...
Additionally, I saw that Clark Terry, Eric Dolphy, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Zoot Sims, Britt Woodman and Jaki Byard are among the players.... Dolphy and Byard are great "Mingusians" (equivalent of "great Ellingtonian"),
Clark Terry is one of my favorite musicians and a great Ellingtonian as well (and we all know how fruitfully Duke has inspired Mingus). As for Akiyoshi - I have NO IDEA how she plays, but several jazz fans on the amazon forum praise her... So, to cut the story short, I bought this...hm...album...

There are good moments here, don't get me wrong, but some tracks are rambling, some are underreharsed, some are cut short before they develop... All in all - a disaster. And, apparently, this is the improved version compared to the LP...

Well,it's all been said here: it was great, it was terrible, it sounds like Ellington, it sounds like a marching band, it is under-rehearsed, the soloists were amazing...etc. It's all true. But I just want to add - I hate when Mingus has others arrange his Big Band music. It's always terribly generic. He never developed a sound for large ensemble that was so indelible that the outside arrangers had to adjust to it. I find this so frustrating in terms of Mingus' compositional voice. He always had Ellington looming over his shoulder, and no matter how much he wrestled with him he never succeeded in knocking him out. This tension is fascinating in a work like Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. It's intermittently fascinating here (Clark In The Dark sounds like out-takes from about 10 different Ellington pieces of the late '30's - pieces that must have haunted Mingus in his formative years: The Gal From Joe's, Tough Trucking, Echoes of Harlem,etc.).But too much of the time there is this same formula: regular Jazz scoring made Mingus-y by nearly falling apart, and by featuring soloists virtually screaming on top of it Dolphy and Mingus' duet is a wonderful, sure-fire moment, and there are some such throughout. But it's all a pretty frustrating listen, unless you're one of those listeners who worships Mingus for the way that he was pretty much the first Jazz great to bring all of his neurosis, craziness, warts (and all), dirty linen, frustrations, violent episodes, needs, longings, loves and hates to the stage. Mingus had his therapist write the liner notes to Black Saint. Duke would have committed Hari-Kiri had there even been intimations that he had ever consulted one. Duke was very Talented Tenth, Mingus more Mau Mau in his approach to both life and art. No Mingus without Duke? Surely. But also, no Art Ensemble (etc.) without Mingus? Here's a piece of the puzzle.

This CD, while disjointed and unorganised is a beatiful display of artistic vision. The genius that Charles Mingus was, is displayed here andultered. The music on this cd, while not refined or rehearsed is unbelievable. The first two Freedom movements are worth the price of admission alone. Freedom Part 2 is a true masterpiece of emotional expression. The eery mood created in part 1 is turned into a raging war between the baritone sax and Clarks screaming solo in Part 2. With a good set of headphones this song truly toys with your emotional well being. From his solo the song breaks into suppresed horns and it finishes. Unfortunately the second part of Freedom cannot be found anywhere else, so we are left with only this seemingly unfinished masterpiece. The rest of the record follows this model as well, which is unfortunate, but is great in its own sense as well because it leaves much to our imagination as we're left trying to fill in the blanks of the music ourselves.

...i first bought this about 8 or 9 years ago, in fact it was like just the third cd i had purchased ever, tryin to transition over from cassette tapes. most of the jazz i had at the time was mostly funk or vocal related (ronny jordan, norman connors, shirley horn, etc.,...), but i was lookin to expand into the more "serious" stuff.
alas, this proved to be too serious for me!
all of that fuss over charles mingus? and this was it!?!
the truth of the matter is that this was just the wrong mingus album to start my interest in.
some of this is "listenable", but i still cant say that i enjoy it. 'ah, um' is a far more acceptable album for us neophytes to begin with. take it slow gettin to know mingus, keep your ears and mind open and you'll find pleasure in most of the music he's made.

On this NY Oct. night in 1962 Mingus assembled a big band of the coolest jazz cats of the era. They were under rehearsed and mingus streched his writing abilities to the limit and his music to it's most imaginable.The band weaves thru the dense arrangements like a drunken sailor, but giving them a unique power at the same time. After Mingus death, his wife would find a suitcase of these charts and would have them re-created for the wonderful Epitath album. This release is a pure joy and each listening rewards with a deeper appreciation.