Pre-Bird: Mingus Revisionism

It must have been fun to try and predict just what Charlie Mingus was going to do next. While a comedy record (Oh Yeah) probably seemed inevitable and a tribute to south of the border debauchery (Tijuana Moods) would have surprised no one, what about a blues-soaked response to charges that he didn't swing enough (Blues and Roots; I'm sure Mingus being mixed-race had nothing to do with these criticisms)? Or the waltz of a newly freed slave (The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady)? Or revisiting compositions that pre-date one of his biggest influences? In a catalogue defined by erratic, unruly recordings, the decidedly traditional Pre-Bird remains one of Mingus' standouts, though not always in the best possible sense.

Probably because he was always going on about seeing his shrink (see his autobiography Beneath the Underdog as well as the liner notes to The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady), I can't help but take a pyschoanalytic approach to Mingus' actions and motivations. What could have brought on such a project? Did he feel caught in the shadow of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell? Did he have this need to prove that he was always a noteworthy figure? Much as I want to think that Mingus' sole concern was to honour the jazz tradition, I can't help but see this album as a vanity project, one meant to soothe his notoriously fragile ego.

But what does all this say about the music? The compositions themselves are impressively old school swing, paying such an obvious debt to Duke Ellington that it would be apparent even without the two covers ('Take the "A" Train' and 'Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me') but it often seems a little too buttoned down for such a wild band leader - though, to be fair, the more restrained pieces are among the album's highlights (the lovely 'Half-Mast Inhibition' is said to be entirely scored). Only on 'Mingus Fingus no. 2' does it feel like he managed to successfully merge his own creativity with an Ellingtonian backdrop. Elsewhere, his own touches seem tacked on, such as his Asian-derived bass flourish on 'Weird Nightmare' accompanied by the flutes of Eric Dolphy and Yusef Lateef - which seems like a nice idea if only it suited the material.

The irony is that Mingus unwittingly pays as much tribute to Parker's influence as Ellington's on Pre-Bird. His compositional talents were a given but swing failed squeeze him out of his shell. Without the rise of bop in the mid-forties it's impossible to imagine the bassist's unbroken string of first rate albums stretching from Pithecanthropus Erectus all the way to The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (and this is if, like me, you're not crazy about the latter's follow-up Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, which many critics rate alongside his best work). Stuck in the middle of such an extraordinary discography, Pre-Bird is an unpredictable (or should we say 'Mingusonian'?) work, occasionally bogged down by the presence of one hero and the absence of another.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady: The Culmination of His Being

It's interesting how the rise of the album coincides with one of the low points of jazz over the course of its fifty year peak. The departure of Johnny Hodges in the early-fifties led to the nadir of Duke Ellington's Orchestra. Miles Davis' exceptional Impressions in Modern Music project (it was only later renamed The Birth of the Cool) resulted in high praise all round and a monstrous heroin addiction that made observers wonder if he was finished at the tender age of twenty-four. Charlie Parker was nearing his expiry date. Even Louis Armstrong was at something of a loss around this time, even if he remained an unbeatable concert attraction.

Artists were compelled to adapt to the album era. It's nice to think that commercial pressure railroaded them into selling out but it was nothing of the sort. Even venerable stallwarts like Armstrong and Ellington were intrigued by the possibilities of suddenly having forty-five minutes of music to fill; the latter responded with a series of superb tributes (Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, King Oliver) while the former pursued suites and song cycles (the Shakespeare-inspired Such Sweet Thunder being one of the earliest). This approach was followed up by Davis and Gil Evans on their late-fifties trilogy (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain) which makes me wonder if the LP actually helped restore jazz's faith in orchestras at a time when they appeared to be dying away.

This leads us to Charlie Mingus. While others adapted themselves to the new medium, he was probably the first major figure to be perfectly suited to it. Whereas increased length tended to work against many of his contemporaries, it seems Mingus was aware of the peaks and valleys of the LP, just as he was all-too aware of his own strengths and shortcomings. If not necessarily the instigator of the concept album - seeing as how the album was an artifact of broadway it's fair to conclude that there were concept albums from day one - then he was certainly the first to recognize that an integral part of the 12" record was the notion of it being more than the sum of its parts. Is it any wonder rock listeners take to The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady? Like A Love Supreme, it even occasionally feels like a rock and roll album.

His most grandiose statement until 1971's Let My Children Hear Music, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a ballet score waiting to be staged and choreographed. (I'm sure a modern dance company in Bucharest or Houston has indeed put on a movement piece in tribute but it's not the same as the Bolshoi, is it?) While the trio of cuts on the first side glide about amiably, the single track second half is a twisted, ugly step-sister, managing to succeed at summing up the entire album while brilliantly undermining itself. Displaying a sophistication like never before - without sacrificing the musical audacity he had perfected a year previous on Oh Yeah - this is not simply Mingus going from strength to strength but high watermark of jazz in general. It's too bad he couldn't sustain it: no one else could.