aworks :: "new" american classical music

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (1959). Charles Mingus

Ok, my "folkies who start with f" playlist somehow led to hearing for the first time musicians Bert Jansch and John Renbossurn Renbourn playing Charles Mingus' Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. Not as soulful as the original rendition, it has intensity and depth nonetheless, in a repressed kind of way. emusic has a clip.

Here's a list of artists who have recorded the tune:

Karrin Allyson; Jeff Beck; Jay Beckenstein; Harry Beckett; Bill Holman Big Band; Carla Bley; Johanne Blouin; Hamiet Bluiett; Anthony Braxton; Pam Bricker; Matthew Brubeck; Tony Campise; Eugene Chadbourne; Stanley Clarke; Jerome Cooper; Dave Corbus; Larry Coryell; Claire Daly; Dead Cat Bounce; Alex DeGrassi; Klaus Doldinger; Dominic Duval; East Of Eden; Taylor Eigsti; Nine Ensemble; Gil Evans; Art Farmer; Carl Filipiak; Paolo Fresu; Frontier Traffic; Richard Greene; GRP All Star Big Band; Jerry Hahn; Alex Harding; Henrys; Bill Holman; D.D. Jackson; Bert Jansch; Jazz Workshop; Bob Jordan; Uwe Kropinski; Steve Lacy; Oliver Lake; Victor Magnani; Marga; Dave Martone; Bill Mays; John McLaughlin; Tony McManus; Charles McPherson; Marcus Miller; Mingus Big Band; Mingus Dynasty; Charles Mingus; Joni Mitchell; Motus Quartett; George Mraz; Mark Murphy; Nashville Mandolin; Tim Newman; One (Jazz); Padovani / Cormann; Horace Parlan; Pentangle; Michel Portal; Tony Reedus; John Renbourn; Maurizio Rolli; Furio Romano; Ian Shaw; Derek Sherinian; Andy Summers; Eva Suobodova; Aki Takase; Tiziano Tononi; Ralph Towner; Uzeb; Carl Verheyen; Shawn Wallace; Bill Warfield; Ernie Watts; Michael Wolff; Denny Zeitlin.

Andy Summers is the Police guitarist, right? God forbid Sting sings the Joni Mitchell lyrics.

goodbye pork pie hat musical analysis, sort of

Solo Dancer (1963). Charles Mingus /greatest sixties songs/

Pitchfork ran a "200 Greatest Songs of the Sixties" series this week. And it's more sophisticated and inclusive than I expected. Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five.

197. Solo Dancer. Charles Mingus. a jazz diagram of the psyche. napster
191. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. Cannonball Adderley Quintet. It wasn't really recorded at "The Club" (shattering my illusion). napster
168. Ghosts. Albert Ayler. the purest distillation of Ayler's ecstatic marching-band mode. napster
159. Astronomy Domine. Pink Floyd. mind expansion and intergalactic research could only be conducted through NASA morse code, academic electronics, time-rippling guitar echoes, and tabernacle vocals about Saturnian staircases (I've turned back onto early Pink Floyd lately) napster
146. In C. Terry Riley. Here, minimalism isn't some totalizing force but a loose scrim dividing sound from silence, music from chaos, and chance from design. napster
132. What a Wonderful World. Louie Armstrong. a subtle heartbreaking gesture to all the darkness rapping at its door (bigotry, weariness, defeat). napster
130. My Favorite Things. John Coltrane. the key change after the chorus is among the most joyous sounds in recorded music. napster
125. Shhh/Peaceful. Miles Davis. blue ambience and the electric ghosts of drone. napster
112. It's Gonna Rain. Steve Reich. a frothing black-magic Pentecostal minister prepping for street-riot Armageddon
71. Manic Depression. Jimi Hendrix. dizzying with its odd time signature and winding, cyclical melody. napster
53. Whole Lotta Love. Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin turned teenage sex-drive into apocalyptic precision-tooled violence. napster albeit King Curtis version
43. Linus & Lucy. Vince Guaraldi Trio.  for many kids, still the first "jazz" they ever hear. napster

The top Rolling Stones and Beatles songs were apropos.

aworks: top 5 beatles songs

Freedom (1963). Charles Mingus /personal and international/

Early summer is shaping up nicely.

First, both sets of in-laws are visiting on consecutive weeks at the end of this month. But that's a good thing.

On June 12th, the #2 and #4 ranked soccer teams meet in first round World Cup action. For 1994's tournament, I saw three matches live and 59 matches on the tube (I still haven't seen Ireland/Italy). This time, it's television only and I have a life now so I need to pace myself during group play. But for the US team, this tournament completely depends on that first game -- I'll either be in ecstasy or in anguish for weeks. After 2002's initial game versus Portugal in the middle of the night, it was tension followed by jubilation (until some anguish later that month after a bogus non-handball call versus Germany in the quarter-finals. Four years later, I'm almost over that. Almost).

Amidst all the soccer, later in June, I'll be seeing these blokes at UC Berkeley's Greek Theatre. I don't even remember exactly where the Greek Theatre is; the last time I was there was to see Ziggy Marley and I can't even recall which Republican was president. Presumably, I'll remember for quite awhile which Republican president was in office this time.

For the outdoor concert, I'm hoping for a cool, foggy "misterioso" kind of night. Via prosaic, I've heard bootlegs of some of Radiohead's new material from a Copenhagen concert. I surmise they probably aren't listening as much to Charles Mingus anymore. Radiohead's earlier National Anthem does come close to that Mingus wildness and exuberation (though there is some Mingus tune I heard in my teens whose title I can't recall right now, that was, to me, the ultimate Mingus). Free Napster has a large amount of Mingus music to peruse.

Text from Charles Mingus' Freedom, cited as inspiration for Pyramid Song:

This mule ain't from Moscow,
this mule ain't from the South.
But this mule's had some learning,
mostly mouth-to-mouth.

Text from National Anthem:

Everyone
Everyone is so near
Everyone has got the fear
It's holding on
It's holding on

A.S Van Dorston in a review of Amnesiac:

One could say Radiohead have done nothing new compared to the artists that inspired them -- Aphex Twin, Autechre and others on the Warp label. But while those artists pioneered certain types of experimental sounds, Radiohead made the innovations work in the context of actual songs.

From some stellar popular music journalism, notes on Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac:

Both albums were also heavily influenced by jazz, especially by Mingus, Alice Coltrane, and Miles Davis in his fusion phase.

And from a google search of Radiohead - click on the link or the photo to see the band's website description as it appears to search engines: