Ethan Philion - Meditations on Mingus (Sunnyside Records)
This past April 22 marked Charles Mingus’ 100th birthday, an event that passed with remarkably little fanfare. I’m old enough to remember Duke Ellington’s centenary and how it was celebrated with deluxe box sets, brand-new remasterings and such. For Mingus? Well, we got a couple of reissues and an archival release, but hardly the fanfare you’d think someone of his stature would get.
But perhaps now, a good 40 years after his death, Mingus has slipped into a kind of obscurity. With a legacy that’s complex and a discography that’s both unwieldy and intimidating for newcomers, perhaps he’s slipped into a second tier, away from the same kind of name recognition as Miles, Ellington or Marsalis. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why bassist Ethan Philion put together a big band and worked on arrangements of eight MIngus compositions.
With a 10-piece band in tow and some nice charts in hand, Philion and company go into the Mingus catalogue. There’s definitely a bias towards late 50s/early 60s Mingus here, with pieces going as far back as “Pithecanthropus Erectus” and “Haitian Fight Song,” and right up to “Remember Rockefeller at Attica,” from 1974’s Changes. He’s also chosen a deep cut: “Once Upon a Time there was a Holding Corporation Called Old America,” which got a belated appearance on 2005’s Music Written for Monterey.
“Once Upon…” opens the record with a slow and moody vibe with horns and Philion’s arco bass playing. But the performance builds up, the whole band slowly coming into frame for the theme and then a burst of chaos, the music lurching suddenly into a piano solo by Alexis Lombre where his playing slows the tempo down. The performance by the band here feels composed, but largely it’s group improvisation: as Philion writes in the liners the improvisation and melodies “blend together into one of the most cinematic pieces Mingus ever wrote.”
It’s hard to disagree: the colours of a big band, and the delicate way they weave between melodies set a good tone for Meditations on Mingus. Again, from Philion’s liners: “I wanted to perform and record (“Haitian Fight Song”) primarily to achieve that feeling of the whole band working together… a collective spirit that would be impossible without unified energy and intent.”
It’s a slight change of mood for “Haitian Fight Song.” It opens with Philion plucking his bass, taking a short solo before the band joins him, horns darting in different directions and the group building up momentum before they stretch out for some solos. It’s less moody and more defiant, a vibe that reappears later on the record with “Remember Rockefeller At Attica,” where Philion’s arrangement gives the piece a bright, almost technicolour feeling.
Meanwhile, “Self Portrait In Three Colours” has more of a moody, late-night kind of energy. Mingus’ ballad is played slow, building up with percussion crashes and a swaying horn section. It’s a good example of what this record, and Philion’s arrangements, do best: have the band play as a unit and wrest the emotion out of Mingus’ pieces. With this one, between the slow tinkles of piano and Russ Johnson’s extended trumpet solo, one can almost see the steam rising out of the sewer grates, hears Mingus on the bandstand. It’s a standout performance.
The group stays pretty close to the original for “Pithecanthropus,” although one can’t hear the bass pounding away like Mingus does on his version. The nice changes here come in the instrumentation: the flute compliments the competing horns nicely and the band swings. But when it drops down to a trio for Philion and Lombre to trade off licks while Dana Hall’s drumming pushes them along, the interplay is great: this is a group that has a nice feel for each other.
Meditations on Mingus closes off with the gutbucket blues of ‘Better Git It In Your Soul,” itself something of a big band staple - Woody Herman did a great version of it - and one that closes the album off in an energetic, joyous way. There’s a pounding piano solo, a section where the band drops out to clap along during an extended sax solo, and Hall works in a couple nice drum breaks.
Overall, Meditations on Mingus is a solid record, one with nice charts and good playing. While it doesn’t take risks like Hal Willner’s Mingus record Weird Nightmare, it does the job well and has faithful versions of Mingus’ material.
But as Philion points out in his liners, it’s not just the music itself that matters when it comes to Mingus: he was an artist who was socially aware about injustice and prejudice, and one who was pretty frank when it came to speaking out about it. The songs here reference segregation, police brutality and mental health. Writes Philion: “For me, listening, transcribing and playing this music is a meditation on how to do better as individuals.” And that’s part and parcel when it comes to Mingus’ music. It’s impossible to divorce his anger from his joy. One imagines he would have had a lot to say about George Floyd, Donald Trump and Samuel Alito. And even if he can’t speak to us now, his music still has a lot to say. And on Meditations on Mingus it does.
As far as 100th birthday presents go, this isn’t too shabby.