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Jazz At Tanglewood Friday, Saturday, and Sunday August 31 through September 2, 1990 Koussevitzky Music Shed, Tanglewood Friday, August 31, at 8 p.m. CHARLES MINGUS' "EPITAPH" Gunther Schuller conducting a 31 -piece all-star jazz orchestra Saturday, September 1 Grounds open at 4 p.m. with an appearance by FULL CIRCLE 7 p.m. ANITA O'DAY HARRY CONNICK, JR. Sunday, September 2 Grounds open at 4 p.m. with an appearance by LARRY CORYELL 7 p.m. GARY BURTON MILES DAVIS : - • . Jazz At Tanglewood Friday, August 3 1 , at 8 CHARLES MINGUS Epitaph Gunther Schuller conducting 1. Epitaph — Main Score 2. The Soul 3. Started Melody 4. Untitled Ballad 5. Freedom 6. Moods in Mambo (Bossa Nova 1945) 7. The Self-Portrait—The Chill of Death (Jazz Version) AKA "Todeskalte" 8. O.P. (Oscar Pettiford) intermission 9. Please Don't Come Back From The Moon 10. Monk, Bunk and Vice Versa 1 1. Peggy's Blue Skylight 12. Wolverine Blues 13. The Children's Hour of Dream/ The Search 14. untitled interlude 15. Better Get Hit in Your Soul 16. Noon Night 17. Percussion, Discussion (Percussion Day) 18. Main Score Reprise Charles Mingus' "Epitaph' / am Charles Mingus. Half-black man, yellow So goes a narration delivered for the man . half-yellow . not even yellow, not even CBC in Toronto by one of America's great- white enough to passfor nothing but black, and est jazz musicians. Born on April 22, 1922, not too light to be called white. I claim that I am in Nogales, Arizona, near the Mexican a Negro . Charles Mingus is a musician, a border, Charles Mingus grew up in the mongrel musician who plays beautiful, who plays West Coast equivalent of Harlem—the area ugly, who plays lovely, who plays masculine, who known as Watts in Los Angeles. He studied playsfeminine , who plays music, who plays all double bass and composition in a formal sounds; loud, soft, unheard sounds, sounds, way while absorbing vernacular music sounds, sounds, solid sounds, sounds, sounds . traditions from the great jazz masters a musician (who) just loves to play with sound. firsthand. His early professional experi- — ences found him touring with the likes of developed his orchestra over a period of Louis Armstrong, Barney Bigard, Kid Ory, five decades: playing his music and refining and Lionel Hampton. Eventually he settled his concept in front of an audience or a in New York, where he played and recorded microphone six or seven times a week, and, with the leading musicians of the 1950s conservatively speaking, four to six hours Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles on each of those days or nights. Davis, Bud Powell, ArtTatum, and many As a composer, Charles Mingus learned others. One of the few bassists to do so, profound lessons from Ellington but he Mingus quickly developed as a leader of also had a talent and a vision that drew musicians. He was also an accomplished upon other sources of inspiration. Unfortu- pianist who could have made a career nately, Mingus did not have at his disposal playing that instrument. By the mid-'50s he a large orchestra ready and able to realize had formed his own publishing and record- his most recent creation night after night, ing companies to protect and document his year after year. Furthermore, as jazz did growing repertoire of original music. From not enjoy any support from the arts estab- the 1960s until his death on January 5, lishment, Mingus had to turn to the dubi- 1979, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Mingus ous environment ofjazz clubs and also to remained in the forefront of American the commercial record industry for oppor- music. tunities to present his music. Neither of When asked to comment on his ac- these venues was ever able to support large complishments, Mingus said that his groups with any regularity since jazz had abilities as a bassist were the result of hard passed out of currency as a popular music. work but that his talent for composition Nevertheless, Mingus continued to com- was a gift. While recordings will preserve pose and work with a growing coterie of Mingus' place in the lineage of great in- musicians as he developed a language that strumentalists, his compositions will con- went quite beyond that of the common prac- tinually instruct, challenge, and inspire tice of his contemporaries. future generations of musicians and audi- In 1962, after following his musical suc- ences to expand their musical horizons. cess with recordings for major companies By 1962, only Duke Ellington had suc- such as Columbia and Atlantic, United ceeded in establishing an orchestra of Artists proposed to Mingus the idea of a consummate artists capable of interpreting long-term contract. With a healthy advance his difficult scores which, while in the jazz payment, Mingus began planning the idea idiom, were as vast in scope as the work of of a recording session in New York's Town any "classical" composer. Ellington was able Hall with an audience in attendance. The to do this because he had painstakingly date was set for November 15, 1962, and Mingus began writing new music and revising older scores for an ensemble of more than thirty musicians. That Mingus could ever have convinced United Artists to record such a huge jazz orchestra is a tribute to his status as one of the most important jazz musicians of those times. Meanwhile, despite some protests that he would be distracted from his preparations, Mingus was convinced to take part in a United Artists session with none other than his mentor Duke Ellington and peer Max Roach. While emotional tension surged during the session, the music proved re- markable and the record company pro- moted Mingus' presence on their roster by taking a full page ad for the December issue of Billboard Magazine. In the meantime, Mingus kept hard at work on preparations for his own date and then, for some reason, he agreed to let United Artists move the session forward to October 12 —a full five weeks earlier. From accounts of musicians who were there, Charles Mingus Mingus expanded his original concept and 38? as he wrote more music, he realized that he written; on others, Epitaph appeared as a would need more help with orchestrating subtitle for what at first looked like indepen- his ideas and copying his scores. dent compositions. Significantly, all the The first in a series of tragedies occurred measures on all of the scores were succes- when Mingus, out of strain and frustration, sively numbered. This seemed to indicate swung out at his longtime friend Jimmy that Mingus had intended all of this music Knepper—who had been assisting with the to work together as an extended composi- preparation of the scores—and broke a tion in a particular organic way. tooth in the trombonist's mouth. With scant Further study and research of this music rehearsal time Mingus assembled his musi- led Gunther Schuller to the conclusion that cians on the stage of Town Hall. In view of Mingus' "hope was to find improvisation the audience were two copyists, seated with and spontaneity and freedom, and at the the orchestra, preparing instrumental parts same time compose a large extensive frame from the newly finished score while the of reference. That's the problem that in jazz musicians played! More aggravating prob- has not yet been solved. Only Duke Elling- lems occurred since the recording engi- ton really tackled it. But Ellington was still neers were not able to provide playback writing songs and fashioning suites around monitors on stage—nor were they able to them. This [Epitaph] has nothing to do with see the musicians, thus reducing communi- thirty-two-bar song forms. It's composition cation to a shambles. Furthermore, when in the true sense." Mingus discovered that the promoters had Perhaps due to the tense and emotional advertised the event as a concert and not as circumstances surrounding his creation an open recording session with its attendant and attempt to perform Epitaph, Mingus stops and starts, he encouraged customers himself said little about this piece except to demand their money back. that "I wrote it for my tombstone." An The full realization of the music Mingus epitaph created by a man with the large had wrought was thwarted not only by a physical dimensions, enormous appetite, lack of rehearsal but by the fact that he had and broad compass of musical expression to act as composer, contractor, conductor, of Charles Mingus will reflect its author's bassist/soloist, consultant, advisor, and, world. Perhaps he considered this piece to virtually, director and producer. Valiantly be a summary or a commemorative incor- Mingus persevered until midnight, when porating not only Mingus' new music of the the unionized stagehands began to close time, but some older pieces re-cast, and down the hall.

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