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Mingus Dynasty

by

Charles Mingus

 
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Mingus Dynasty
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Avg: 4.0 (37 ratings)

  • Date Released: November 1, 1959
  • Genre: Jazz
  • Label: Columbia/Legacy
  • Copyright: Originally Released 1960, 1979 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

A deeply rewarding mix of chamber music, bop, thorny romanticism and gospel soul

  • We Say...

    Review by Ed Ward

    The second, and final, album Charles Mingus recorded for Columbia in 1959 is a contrast to the first, Mingus Ah Um, emphasizing the composer side of his personality over the jazzier impulses — although the split isn't really that radical. Pieces like "Song With Orange," "Far Wells, Mill Valley" and "Diane" have passages that sound more like chamber music than bop, which is very much in line with what Mingus intended. As if to drive the perception home, there are two pieces here by his model/idol, Duke Ellington, "Things Ain't What They Used To Be," and (get the tar and feathers ready, Ellington fans) what may be the greatest recording ever, by anyone, of "Mood Indigo." It's one of Mingus' defining moments, as one by one the soloists untether themselves from the pulse of the piece, with Mingus and drummer Danny Richmond keeping them from floating away, to explore the many melodic and harmonic possibilities it provides. Of particular note are John Handy's hommage to Ellington's original altoist, Johnny Hodges, and Roland Hanna's very un-Dukish piano solo. A thorny romanticism pervades the chamber-like pieces here, while the gospel-soul-jazz pieces which bookend the album, "Slop" and "Put Me In That Dungeon," remind us of where it all came from. ("Strollin'" is a previously-unreleased vocal piece not on the original). Mingus Dynasty is a dense, intellectual album, but don't let those words put you off: it's also deeply rewarding, and a cornerstone of the career of one of midcentury's greatest American musical talents.

  • They Say...

    Review by Steve Huey, All Music Guide

    Mingus Ah Um catapulted Charles Mingus from a much-discussed semi-underground figure to a near-universally accepted and acclaimed leader in modern jazz. Perhaps that's why his Columbia follow-up, Mingus Dynasty, is often overlooked in his canon -- it's lost in the shadow of its legendary predecessor, both because of that album's achievement and the fact that it's just a notch below the uppermost echelon of Mingus' work. Having said that, Mingus Dynasty is still an excellent album -- in fact, it's a testament to just how high a level Mingus was working on that an album of this caliber could have gotten lost in the shuffle. There's a definite soundtrack quality to a great deal of the music here, and indeed the majority of Mingus' originals here were composed for film and television scores and an expanded, nine- to ten-piece group. On some pieces, Mingus refines and reworks territory he'd previously hit upon. "Slop," for example, is another gospel-inflected 6/8 stormer, composed for a TV production that requested a piece similar to "Better Get It in Your Soul." The ferocious "Gunslinging Bird" follows a similar pattern, and it's the same piece whose full title -- "If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" -- is given elsewhere. There are a couple of numbers from the Ellington songbook that both feature cellos -- "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" and a fantastic, eight-minute "Mood Indigo" -- and a couple of pieces that rely on the even more tightly orchestrated approach of Mingus' pre-Pithecanthropus Erectus days -- "Far Wells, Mill Valley" and the atonal but surprisingly tender and melodic "Diane." The CD reissue of Mingus Dynasty -- like that of its predecessor -- restores the full-length versions of some songs that had portions of solos edited for time on the original LP release.

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