Pithecanthropus Erectus (album)
Occupation
- Bass: Charles Mingus
- Tenor Saxophone: J. R. Monterose
- Alto Saxophone by Jackie McLean
- Piano: Mal Waldron
- Drums: Willie Jones
Pithecanthropus Erectus is the first jazz album by Charles Mingus, in which he outlines his in previous years, in his " Jazz Workshops" ausprobiertes new concept of the connection of a compositional framework with the free improvisation of his musicians.
Bulk
As Mingus describes in his liner notes, the experience had taught him with the Jazz Composers Workshop in 1953 that you'd get away in the Jazz of the advertised scores. Instead, he wrote his compositions only as a scaffold on "thought music paper " and played his ideas then the session musicians on the piano before, until they were completely familiar with its interpretation and tone scales and chord progressions of the composition.
The title track Pithecanthropus Erectus, on which he worked for a long time, describes by Mingus in four movements rise and fall of the ( supposedly) first people Pithecanthropus erectus: 1 Development (" Evolution" ) to walk upright, 2nd feelings of superiority ( " superiority complex" to master ), will the world and other, 3rd descent ( " decline " ), 4 total destruction ( " destruction" ), with Mingus as reasons the inevitable self-emancipation of the enslaved him and - here seem his psychological interests through - self-alienation the Versklavers (his "false security" ) is called. The theme in ABAC form is taken up by each of the soloists. At the end ( " Destruction" ), the interaction increases to a dissonant climax. The tone colors change varied. The two pieces of the first hand, in many later hearers because also done to the beginnings of free jazz antedate by several years.
The follow- piece A Foggy Day ( in San Francisco) or b on on Gershwin's composition A Foggy Day in London Town, but onomatopoeic describes a foggy day in Frisco, including marine fog horns, traffic noise, the Torkelgang a drunk, police whistles and "that damned twelve o ' clock whistle did used to wake me up ". The piece had been recorded by Mingus 5 weeks ago at the Cafe Bohemia ( The Charles Mingus Quintet and Max Roach, December 23, 1955 with Mal Waldron and partially Willie Jones) (as Love Chant ) and performed by his jazz workshop even more been; However, the spread here soundscape was only hinted at there.
Profile of Jackie is one run by Mingus's portraits of musicians, in this case, and for Jackie McLean, of this yourself. It contains allusions to Chelsea Bridge and This subdues My Passion.
The longest piece Love Chant is here with alternating solos developed in an "extended form" (also from Mingus ), rhythmic layering and formal contrasts and again shows an example of the typical approach in the Jazz Workshop. The AC signals are thereby Mal Waldron on piano. Love Chant was also recorded shortly before in a live recording at the Cafe Bohemia.
The saxophonist JRMonterose (1927-1993) has seen here in retrospect the height of his career (although he later also as a leader for Blue Note Records receives ), and Jackie McLean, Mal Waldron the Mingus imagined, had in his work Jazz Workshop as he told the 1974 Downbeat, musical crucial further developed ( even if the work with Mingus was not always easy ). The drummer Willie Jones is replaced during the next LP "The Clown" (and of course on " Tijuana Moods " from 1957 ) by Dannie Richmond, with the Mingus then formed a rhythm duo that almost blind saw itself. The successful " The Clown " at the same time confirmed the set in this album Mingus claim, a leader of the avant-garde to be.
On the original cover are stick figures seen in prehistoric cave images of the kind (of Curtice Taylor).
Album pieces
All compositions by Charles Mingus except A Foggy Day, which uses a Gershwin template.
Recorded on January 30, 1956 in the Audio-Video Studios, New York (recording engineers Tom Dowd, Funny Hal ). Alternate takes do not seem to exist (or to have been lost in the fire of the Atlantic Warehouse 1976).