Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts
Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts
Some of the tracks on this two-CD set have circulated on YouTube, but this is the first official release with good audio fidelity. Bassist and composer Charles Mingus performed this music in Buenos Aires during his 1977 tour of Latin America. The live album captures a superb quintet whose members were seldom recorded together: saxophonist Ricky Ford, trumpeter Jack Walrath, pianist Bob Neloms and drummer Dannie Richmond.
Mingus and company maintained an unhurried stroll through a set of largely original and often familiar Mingus compositions, starting with “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” and winding through “Fables of Faubus,” plus a pair of solo improvisations by Mingus on piano. In his jacket notes, Mingus biographer Brian Priestley calls the bassist’s approach “freedom-with-organization,” an apt description for a group dynamic whose soloists were never allowed self-indulgence. The blues-tinges are indebted to Mingus’ love of Duke Ellington.
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