Charles Mingus - At Antibes 1960 Revisited

2023 release

Charles Mingus' exhilarating blend of roots and the avant-garde only rarely seems as binary* (see below) as it does on this recording from the 1960 Antibes Jazz Festival. Most often on a Mingus album, you do not hear the joins. This time, on one level, you do.

Mingus leads a pianoless quintet completed by Booker Ervin on tenor saxophone, Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, Ted Cursonon trumpet and Dannie Richmond on drums. Bud Powell guests on piano on the closer, "I'll Remember April," the only tune not written by Mingus.

The album's juxtaposition—if that is what it is—of roots and the avant-garde is played out in the main by the horns, and with particular piquancy by the two reed players. The opener, "Prayer For Passive Resistance," is essentially a showcase for Ervin, whose fiery wailing tenor is the most frequently heard individual voice on the album. Ervin never made concessions to avant-garde sensibilities, either with Mingus or when leading his own bands, remaining committed to unconstricted hard bop. (In the mid-1960s, he released a string of keep-the-faith albums on Prestige, starting with 1963's excellent Exultation, made with a quintet including fellow Mingus sideman, pianist Horace Parlan). Mingus dug Ervin deeply and he was a staple band member between 1959 and 1963.

Mingus also dug Dolphy, who took care of the avant-garde end of the spectrum. Perhaps wise to the conservative tastes of much of the Antibes audience, Mingus does not bring Dolphy forward immediately and does not let him loose on the bass clarinet in full blazing effect until the penultimate piece, "What Love?" Here Mingus and Dolphy rehearse their extraordinarily eloquent non-verbal conversation on the same piece, recorded three months later on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid, 1960).
Despite Mingus' caution about deploying Dolphy, he was still too much for some audience members, whose whistles of disapproval during "What Love?" are clearly audible—as are the cheers of others. (Five years later at Antibes, so many audience members walked out during the John Coltrane quartet's opening night performance of "A Love Supreme" that on the following night Coltrane performed more familiar material.)

The other thing that needs to be said about this album is the quality of ezz-thetics' sound restoration. All the instruments have enhanced presence and Mingus' bass, in particular, is up close, personal, and deliciously resonant. Sound engineer Michael Brändli is often praised on these pages, and deservedly so. The label's innovation of "no digital zero" between the tracks is also notable. It helps to keep you in the zone, not that Mingus fans should need any help.

Postscript: Though the YouTube below is not in performance order and the camera tricks during the first 20 minutes are infuriating and the sound throughout is barely adequate, the footage is to be treasured for providing us with rare moving images of the musicians involved. It includes some unaccompanied Powell (at 22:05) and other material not included on the album. There are also several minutes of empty black screen—hang on in there, "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" and "Better Get Hit In Your Soul" are coming right up.

* The combination is binary only on a superficial level. At a deeper one, there is no duality in Mingus' music. Rarely has that been more apparent than on Ervin and Dolphy's exchanges towards the end of "MDM (Monk, Duke & Mingus)" on Mingus (Candid, 1961). The two horns—one the standard bearer of tradition, the other intent on stretching it near to breaking point—come close to total morph. There is only a mutual outpouring of emotion. This fundamental unitarism is, perhaps, Mingus' greatest gift to jazz.

Chris May