Three Or Four Shades Of Blues - Charles Mingus

Mar

29

Three Or Four Shades Of Blues - Charles Mingus

≡ Category: 1970s, Bebop, Progressive Big Band, Recommended, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

There’s something perversely entertaining about listening to guitarist Larry Coryell wank away at rock and roll cliches on top of Better Git Hit In Your Soul, Mingus’ umpteenth remake of his big hit, Better Get It In Your Soul.

Three Or Four Shades Of Blues is late Mingus, and admittedly not his best, but it is still fun. Mingus plays as well as ever, but his arranging on Three Or Four Shades Of Blues does not compare favorably to his work even from a few years earlier on Changes One and Changes Two.

Still, Three Or Four Shades Of Blues allows us the rare opportunity to hear Mingus work with guitarists, in this case Larry Coryell, Philip Catherine, and John Scofield (in an early performance). Perhaps Mingus was inspired to create such a guitar-centric work by Jeff Beck’s definitive performance of Mingus’ Goodbye Porkpie Hat.

Here, Goodbye Porkpie Hat is arranged in a quiet and reflective manner, which is somewhat compromised by the hamhanded heroics of Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine on acoustic guitar, who both play weely weely fast and say nothing much at all. Mingus himself is much more expressive in a typically obstreperous solo.

Noddin Ya Head Blues is pretty much what it sounds like. There isn’t much to it beyond a series of agreeably shaggy solos, with a lazy orchestration hanging over them.

That could be said for much of the music on Three Or Four Shades Of Blues, but fortunately the soloists Mingus hired for this recording include such stellar talents as George Coleman on tenor and alto sax, and Jack Walraith on trumpet.

Three Or Four Shades Of Blues is the only piece Mingus wrote expressly for the date, which he dashed off the weekend before. It sounds like it. It includes a silly interpolation of the Wedding March that’s familiar to everyone. Frankly, Three Or Four Shades Of Blues is the work of a sick, old man. It is but an echo of the powerhouse Mingus was as a composer and an arranger, but even echoes from a giant like Mingus are like full throated shouts from a lesser man. As such, Three Or Four Shades Of Blues feels like an epitaph and a benediction. It’s like Mingus is saying goodbye to us. There’s some balladry, some swing, a Latin vamp, some blues. It’s sad and touching, and I’m glad I own it.

On the final cut, Nobody Knows, guitarist John Scofield finally has an opportunity to show his stuff, and he blows Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine out of the studio and off the planet. It’s too bad Mingus didn’t know about Scofield before or he probably wouldn’t have hired those other two clowns.

After all of this griping, why am I recommending Three Or Four Shades Of Blues? Well, it’s entertaining to hear Mingus work with guitarists, even lame ones. There are a number of fine soloists, not least Mingus himself. The arrangements are still potent, even from a weak and worn out Mingus. Finally, Three Or Four Shades Of Blues feels like Mingus’ retirement party. It’s a little nostalgic, a little defiant, there’s a little forced cheer, a whistling past the graveyard. Call me a sentimentalist, but it moves me — I can’t help it.