“Epitaph”: A Historical Masterpiece of Jazz

By Jose Reyes On December 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Charles Mingus was a giant in the world of Jazz. His unrivaled ability to play the Bass was actually considered to be, may I say, weak, when compared to his genius ability to compose music. I personally love his music but it gets complicated, you see, hundreds of Jazz music listening hours are involved to fully understand how special his music was and will always be. He raised the bar in the world of Jazz for all future fellow musicians. I am going to place my introductory podcast ahead of all the valuable information on this “Historical Masterpiece of Jazz” and on Mingus himself:

Biography of Charles Mingus:

One of the most important figures in twentieth century American music, Charles Mingus was a virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader and composer. Born on a military base in Nogales, Arizona in 1922 and raised in Watts, California, his earliest musical influences came from the church– choir and group singing– and from “hearing Duke Ellington over the radio when [he] was eight years old.” He studied double bass and composition in a formal way (five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and compositional techniques with the legendary Lloyd Reese) while absorbing vernacular music from the great jazz masters, first-hand. His early professional experience, in the 40′s, found him touring with bands like Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory and Lionel Hampton. Eventually he settled in New York where he played and recorded with the leading musicians of the 1950′s– Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington himself…...Learn More

Epitaph, The 1962 Tryout and 1989 Success:

Charles Mingus’ place in jazz history was secured well before his death at fifty-six in 1979. He had made his mark as one of the music’s great bassists, most uncompromising bandleaders and original composers. But an event that happened ten years after his death created a tsunami spreading throughout the jazz world, now known as Mingus Music.

That event was the premiere of “Epitaph (available on the two-CD 1990 Columbia release of the same name), Mingus’ sprawling, grand, two-hour-plus musical epic composed for an augmented, thirty-piece jazz orchestra. In 1962, Mingus disastrously attempted to record some of it during a concert (the results can be heard on the 1962 United Artist release, Town Hall Concert), then abandoned it, although evidently continuing to work on it, since a manuscript of over five hundred pages was discovered in his widow Sue Mingus’ closet some years after his death.

Working diligently from that manuscript, conductor/arranger Gunther Schuller, an early champion of Mingus the composer, produced the performable score heard on the Columbia recording.

Until that concert and recording in 1989, Mingus Music had lived on modestly with Mingus Dynasty, the seven-piece band of mostly Mingus alumni that Sue Mingus had been managing and booking for the previous decade. But “Epitaph caused her to reconsider the future.

“Hearing Charles’ music reflected in much grander fashion in ‘Epitaph’ inspired me to start the Mingus Big Band, she said from her Jazz Workshop, Inc., offices in Manhattan, where she was in the midst of planning for the first New York performance of “Epitaph in eighteen years, as part of a celebration of Mingus’ 85th birth anniversary (he was born April 22nd, 1922).

In 1999 the Mingus Big Band and Mingus Dynasty were joined in her burgeoning Mingus Music organization by the Mingus Orchestra, another ensemble emphasizing orchestral renderings of Mingus Music and employing some of the instruments Mingus added to standard big band sections for “Epitaph, like bassoon, bass clarinet and French horn.

“Charles didn’t have the luxury of a big band, explains Sue Mingus, “so almost all of our arrangements for the big band and orchestra are done by members of the ensembles or Gunther Schuller and Sy Johnson [who orchestrated some of Mingus' larger ensemble recordings]. It’s a living legacy. What keeps Mingus Music so modern and moving forward is the space that Charles left within the music. It’s a remarkable combination of serious composition that has to be honored and great freedom within that composition. He left a lot of freedom for the musicians to bring in their own individual voices. His mantra was ‘Play yourself’; he would shout it at the musicians all the time and so you have voices of today reflected in the music as it moves forward…...Read More

Epitaph, 2007-2008 New York and Los Angeles

New York:

Nearly 18 years after its world premiere at Lincoln Center in 1989, “Epitaph” was performed in a series of concerts in Spring 2007 to coincide with Charles Mingus’s 85th birthday year. It was again conducted by Gunther Schuller, at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Tri-C Jazz Festival, and Chicago’s Sympony Center. Considered the most important and prophetic jazz composition since Ellington’s extended works, “Epitaph” was composed by Mingus over several decades. After his death in 1979, musicologist Andrew Homzy discovered the missing 500-page score in an old trunk in the home of his widow Sue MIngus while cataloging the Mingus collection now housed at the Library of Congress. Constructed as a suite of 19 movements for 31 musicians, and running well over two hours, “Epitaph” is a history of jazz, encompassing musical forms....Continue Reading

Epitaph, written for a 31-piece ensemble, was the masterwork of composer/bassist Charles Mingus. The extended suite is comprised of multiple movements reflecting a wealth of compositional styles (not just jazz) that demonstrate Mingus’ invaluable contribution to 20th-Century American music. Since its last performance 15 years ago, additional movements have been discovered which were originally intended to be a part of the work. This unique 500-page score can be found here

NPR (Walt Disney):

July 24, 2008 – As creative chair for jazz at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, bass player Christian McBride gets to program four concerts a year. The moment he got the job, he put Charles Mingus’ monumental, 2 1/2-hour jazz symphony “Epitaph” at the top of his list.

“When you hear Mingus’ music, that’s about as advanced as you can get,” McBride says. “But it’s always rooted — it’s always coming out of that real indigenous black tradition. I’m talking about, like, work songs and gospel, you know, all the way up through Ellington, all the way up through the strife of the ’60s. All of that is in his music.”

Jazz historian and composer Gunther Schuller conducted the entire concert in front of a 31-piece jazz orchestra. He says that Charles Mingus was a man of many moods — and that he sees them in the very fabric of Mingus’ masterpiece.

“I knew him quite well,” Schuller says. “He could be as gentle as a baby, and he could also be so full of tantrums and explosive and angry, and all of this range of feelings is in this piece. It’s all there: It’s like a musical picture of Mingus’ personality — from the most beautiful gentle ballads, lyric pieces, to these extremely chaotic, disorganized, wild pieces.”

By the time “Epitaph” premiered in 1962, Mingus was already well-known as a composer, bandleader, and virtuoso bass player, a musician who had worked with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Duke Ellington, among others. But how Mingus came to write the piece remains something of a mystery…..Continue Reading

Listen to the Full Concert:

Epitaph, listen to Part One and Part Two

-Where you can purchase Epitaph and all of Charles Mingus Music .

-The Official Charles Mingus Website and find Charles Mingus on Facebook

“He left a lot of freedom for the musicians to bring in their own individual voices. His mantra was ‘Play yourself’; he would shout it at the musicians all the time and so you have voices of today reflected in the music as it moves forward.”