Charles Mingus - 1963 [1997] "Mingus Plays Piano"

Mingus Plays Piano is a 1963 solo jazz album by Charles Mingus. The album is notable for Mingus's departure from his usual role as composer and double-bassist in ensemble recordings, instead playing piano without any additional musicians.

This album is unique in Mingus' enormous catalog. As the title indicates, the famous bassist takes to the ivories solo to give life to his dazzling improvisational art. At first it seems odd to hear Mingus without one of his trademark interactive and exploratory ensembles. But the sensibility that he brings to this collection of piano pieces bears all the signs of the composer's genius.

In the first piece, "Myself When I Am Real," turbulence and aching beauty merge in Mingus' spontaneous unfolding of phrases. Such standards as "Body and Soul" and "Memories of You" are given personal, harmonically intriguing readings that blend in seamlessly with a Mingus original like "Old Portrait." In many ways, it is a treat to hear the artist working in this pared-down, quieter atmosphere, as it allows one to concentrate more intently upon the range and compositional brilliance of this incomparable figure.

Mingus Plays Piano originally was released on the heels of The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady, a brilliantly orchestrated, album length composition performed by an eleven piece band of frequent Mingus collaborators. The Black Saint was a career highlight, but the year leading up to that success was a tumultuous one. In 1962, Mingus toured heavily, and for his band’s residencies in NYC, he experimented with hiring a bassist and playing piano himself. He agreed to record a live album with a big band iteration of his Jazz Workshop for United Artists. Rushed preparations for this maximalist composition resulted in an incident where he punched his longtime trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth. The 31-piece band’s one night stand at Town Hall was sloppy, and Mingus raged as concertgoers walked out and demanded a refund. After that disastrous performance, Mingus was exhausted, had gained a lot of weight, and suffered from painful ulcers. His wife Judy had just delivered a stillborn baby girl. The couple retreated to the Bay Area where Farwell Taylor, Mingus’ old beatnik-guru friend, straightened him out with a weeklong juice cleanse.

By most accounts, Charles Mingus never dropped acid. But in 1962, he spent time hanging out with Timothy Leary at Millbrook, where the Harvard researcher had made a laboratory of magnate Charles Dieterich’s rococo mansion. Mingus’ pal and heir to the Mellon fortune, Peggy Hitchcock, brought him upstate to escape the bustle of Manhattan and check out Leary’s newfound spiritual drug. Instead, Mingus would stay up late carousing, ranting at tripping jet-setters, and playing the house piano. He certainly indulged in bouts of excess with all sorts of substances–late night Chinese food among them–but acid scared him. Music was religion for Mingus, and in that church he was very spiritual and devoted. His immense lust for music encompassed some impossible eccentricities and violent tempers, but all in service to a method, a history. Leary felt that the endless expanse of the unlocked mind had something in common with the generative potential of improvisation. He’d tell Mingus to “just play” the piano, to which Mingus called bullshit: “You can’t improvise on nothin’, man. You’ve got to improvise on somethin’.”

Although Mingus Plays Piano is mostly original material, he includes riffs on a few standards like “I Can’t Get Started” and “Body and Soul.” He first worked out “Myself When I Am Real” in his wife Judy’s living room, and at the beginning of “Memories of You” Mingus kids around: “I don’t think I should improvise man. It’s not like sittin’ at home, I can tell you that. It’s not like playing at home by yourself.” Far from raw or unprepared, the album bears a significant subtitle: “spontaneous compositions and improvisations.” Mingus had strong opinions about the relationship between composition and improvisation. His first love was classical music–in particular the work of Strauss, Debussy, and Stravinsky, harmonically inventive composers who ushered in the modern period of orchestral music.

Track listing:

    "Myself When I Am Real" – 7:38
    "I Can't Get Started" (Vernon Duke, Ira Gershwin) – 3:43
    "Body and Soul" (Frank Eyton, Johnny Green, Edward Heyman, Robert Sour) – 4:35
    "Roland Kirk's Message" – 2:43
    "Memories of You" (Eubie Blake, Andy Razaf) – 4:37
    "She's Just Miss Popular Hybrid" - 3:11
    "Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blue" – 4:18
    "Meditations for Moses" - 3:38
    "Old Portrait" - 3:49
    "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" (George Bassman, Ned Washington) – 3:46
    Compositional Theme Story: "Medleys, Anthems and Folklore" – 8:35

Personnel:

    Charles Mingus - piano, vocals