Thirteen Pictures: The Charles Mingus Anthology

Charles Mingus

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 17, 1993)
• Original Release Date: August 17, 1993
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B00000332C
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #91,831 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Charles Mingus lived even longer than John Coltrane did, and produced even more great music that could never fit onto a 2 CD set. Compiler Hal Willner and annotator Andrew Homzy are less interested in tracing Mingus's history than they are in highlighting his peak achievements as a composer. As a result, the set, arranged out of chronological order, tries to present the definitive recordings of Mingus's greatest compositions: the well-known "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," "Jump Monk," and "Better Get It in Your Soul," and nine more under-appreciated works (plus a collaboration with his hero, Duke Ellington). The 13 tracks come from seven different labels and constitute a powerful argument that Mingus ranks with Morton, Ellington, Monk, and Coleman as one of the greatest composers in jazz. --Geoffrey Himes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Don't Know What You've Been Missing!, October 22, 2002

By	D. Hawkins (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For anyone thinking about "getting into" Mingus, this is a great first step to take. As usual, Rhino does it right and gives us the impressive that was Mingus' work. Going from "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" to "Myself When I Am Real" is a masterstroke. Also, this set shows you the brilliance of such sidemen as Danny Richmond, Jaki Byard and Jackie McLean, people who were up to the challenge of taking Mingus' work to unknown places. I still can recall first hearing "Pithocampus Erectus" on the local jazz station and asking myself, "What was that?!" Since then, life has never been the same. When it comes to Mingus, why be normal?

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ah, um!, June 21, 2000

By	Mike Stone (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

To my ears, the most transcendent moment in the history of recorded music (please excuse the hyperbole) occurs about twenty seconds into "Jump Monk", the third song on disc one of this collection. After a nimble bassline intro by Mingus himself, tenor saxman George Barrow unleashes six soulful, lilting notes that never fail to conjure up images of what it must be like to stare into the face of god.

Now, one 3 second phrase does not an album make. I know this. This is one of my favourite jazz collections because the rest of it manages to live up to that one magnificent moment. Its consistency is what amazes me. Mingus manages to write music the way Tom Robbins writes books: with a focus on the narrative whole, while adding enough raw nuggets of buoyancy to make the whole thing go down easy.

Highlights for me include "Cumbia & Jazz Fusion" (like listening to the history of man), "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (melancholic without being melodramatic -- an impossible feat in my books), and "Better Git it in Your Soul" (spunky energy). And of course, "Myself When I Am Real", a haunting seven-and-a-half minute piano improv.

Sometimes jazz baffles me for its insistence on staying within the basic and cliched forms. Mingus never falls into that deep hole.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "no lack of audacity...", October 29, 2001

By	m_noland "m_noland" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

...could be used to describe either Mingus or this collection: producers Joel Dorn and Hal Willner have chosen to lead off with "Cumbia/Jazz Fusion" a sprawling 27 minute piece that (unjustly) received little attention and virtually no airplay when it was released in 1979. This is followed by a solo piano piece "Myself When I am Real." The listener is well over forty minutes into this collection before encountering well-known "hits" like "Haitian Fight Song" or "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat."

The subtext of the collection seems to be to establish that Mingus was a jazz composer comparable to a giant like Ellington. And it is true, the sweep of this music from solo piano to big band, from chorus-bridge-chorus songs to multi-sectional suites is impressive. In this regard, this anthology succeeds as an introduction to Mingus' music. However, the inclusion of some of this material is done at the cost of omitting many of Mingus' better known (and more typical) works. If one just wants to hear Mingus and his band at their peak, get the late 1950s classics like "Ah um."

The CD includes good liner notes. All musicians and recording details documented.