Written by Fumo Verde

Blue Note wowed me again with another previously unreleased recording of the Charles Mingus Sextet. This two CD-set contains material that, before this recording was discovered, the good folks at Blue Note thought came about a little later than it actually did. This album predates by three weeks, the Sextet’s adventure from a Town Hall Concert on April 4th through a European Tour and ending at the Monterey Jazz Festival. It also includes Eric Dolphy, who besides being a revolutionary alto sax player was the first important bass clarinet players in jazz, along with being one the first significant flute soloists. There are jazz players, there are jazz artists, and then there’s Charles Mingus. This live show at Cornell makes clear why.

The opening is the applause from the students as the band takes the stage. Jaki Byard is on the piano and he immediately charges into “ATFW You,” a tribute to Art Tatum and Fats Weller. This solo is a melody of all the old piano riffs and hooks you’ve heard in many a ragtime gangster movie. It is followed by Mingus himself in a solo of Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.”

From there, we take the ride with the “Fables of Faubus.” This thirty-minute tune drives us on a journey as the band explodes with fury and fire, then cools down for a night on the town. Johnny Coles on trumpet and Clifford Jordan on tenor sax fly about the scales like birds of prey fighting for a meal, while all along singing in harmony. Dannie Richmond pounds out the drums to the point of exhaustion, only to have Byard save him by playing “Yankee Doodle” on the ivories. After the good old American battle theme and with a few magic strokes of the keys and some plucks of the bass, the jam starts up again. The horns come alive along with Dolphy on the bass clarinet, adding a spicy flavor to the melody. A duel comprised of tenor sax, the drums, and deep in the background, the bass clarinet rages like a squall, then disappears. We haven’t even come close to the middle of this jam and the surprises down the line are well worth waiting for.