Charles Mingus' Epitaph - Live in Berlin

poster of the 1991 Berlin Jazz Festival

This is a long excerpt (25 mins) from the Charles Mingus Epitaph concert in Berlin, as conducted by Gunther Schuller.

The concert was held during the Berlin Jazz Festival in October 1991, nearly two years after Epitaph's New York premiere.

I found this invaluable footage, an off-air recording, on one of my old VHS tapes. Alas, the first piece on this video, Better Git In Your Soul (which is obviously not the first piece from the actual concert) is incomplete and starts from the middle. Like Mr. Schuller, I'm beginning to believe this ambitious piece of orchestral jazz is jinxed:

"There were many times in the many-months-long preparation for the issuance of Epitaph when I felt that what many of us consider a jinx under which this great work has stood—the first expression of which was the disastrous attempt to record Epitaph in I962—was continuing to exercise its evil curse. Recording equipment breaking down, gremlins in computerized mixing consoles, tapes being inadvertently locked up in temporarily inaccessible offices, unavailability of mixing and editing studies when needed, enormous scheduling conflicts, and so on." 

I hope someone comes up with the complete video of Berlin concert. Until then, enjoy this great 25 minutes of Mingus' music. 

Gunther Schuller

Listening to Andrea Marcelli Trio

It's almost miraculous that the combination of a classic jazz trio (piano, bass, drums) and the American songbook can sustain its freshness and elements if surprise after decades of being practiced and rethought.

Maybe like that old standard, Say It Over And Over Again, the beauty of the classic trio reveals and definitely perfects itself in repetition and recurrence.

Whatever the case, if one adds to that magical combination a Roman sensitivity, which is evident through the musical career of Andrea Marcelli, then the result would be something like Sundance, a 9 year old record by Andrea Marcelli Trio which I discovered recently.

A Berlin-based group, the Trio features the leader on drums, Danish Thomas Clausen on piano and an Italian Davide Petrocca on bass.

The recording in question, is celebrating both the old and the new: there are standards (by Gillespie, Porter, Ellington), as well as originals by Andrea Marcelli and his contemporary Italian composers.

The reissue of the album in 2012 presents two bonus tracks, one of which, O Cessate di Piagarmi, can be heard here and I hope it gives a taste of the intensity and beauty of the group:

Peanuts Hucko: Tribute to Louis and Benny

Peanuts Hucko at Famous Door (New York, circa 1946-48. Photo by William Gottlieb.)

Peanuts Hucko was busy playing various Armstrong and Goodman pieces from the mid-80s onwards, as documented on a CD called Tribute to Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman, a title previously used for a Stuttgard-based TV show, ZDF Jazz Club.

This performance from the aforementioned show features Peanuts Hucko on clarinet, Johnny Varro on piano, Colin Green on bass, and Jake Hanna on drums. It was filmed on May 15, 1987.

Modern Jazz Quartet & Kammerorchester Arcata

Thanks to my good friend Neil who kindly accepted to digitize some rusty VHS tapes from my collection, there is a good supply of jazz videos for 2015, most of them never released before (except their original airing on German TV) and not even available online.

However, the one I'm about to play here, of a Modern Jazz Quartet concert in Germany, seems to be released on DVD by at least two different companies: TDK's jazz series and Arthaus Musik in Deutschland.

This concert, from (possibly) July, 1992, was held as a part of Jazzgipfel festival in Stuttgart. What makes this particular date different from other MJQ's 40th anniversary concerts is a) the absence of Connie Kay due to the ailment which led to Mickey Roker's involvement in the band. (Although the TV broadcaster of this show erroneously credits the drummer as Kay.) b) a chamber orchestra, Kammerorchester Arcata, backing the quartet with reasonably satisfactory results.