Astral Weeks (Charles Mingus album)

Infobox Album
Name = Astral Weeks
Type = live
Artist = Charles Mingus


Released = Unknown
Recorded = April 14, 1964 in Copenhagen
Genre = Jazz
Length =
Label = Moon
Producer =
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Last album =
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Astral Weeks is an album by Charles Mingus.

It is a unauthorized "bootleg" recorded live in Copenhagen, on April 14, 1964. [The venue in Copenhagen was the Great Hall in the Odd Fellows' Palace (Odd Fellows Palaet Store Sal). The Odd Fellows is a fraternal order and the venue has been used by many artists e.g. the Thelonious Monk Quartet ("Monk In Copenhagen") and Victor Borge. Several citations refer to "The Old Fellow Palaet's Store Sal" (sic). This is either a misprint that has arisen along the chain of citation or an obscure joke.] during Mingus' European tour in that month. [ [http://adale.org/Discographies Adale Discographies] and [http://mingus.onttonen.info/1964.html The European Tour] ] The performance was provided by a sextet of jazz musicians, lead by bassist Charles Mingus, from the United States. It included:
*alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet: Eric Dolphy
*tenor saxophone: Clifford Jordan
*piano: Jaki Byard
*trumpet: Johnny Coles
*drums: Dannie Richmond

The music was originally released as a vinyl L.P. on the Moon label (mlp016-1) but the date of this first release is not well documented [See for example [http://www.outbreakin.hp.infoseek.co.jp/ericdolphy3.htm here] ] . This L.P. is now a very rare item. The work was re-released in 1990 as a compact disc, also on the Moon label (MCD 016-2). There may have been subsequent re-releases. Mingus' "Astral Weeks" contains only two tracks: "Fables of Faubus" and "Meditations", [ Some of Mingus' works have names that come in several variations. This one is sometimes given as "Meditations On Integration" or "Meditations on wire cutters" and there are other variants] although the full performance of his group's music that day also included other compositions that are absent from the Moon releases. [See, for example [http://mingus.onttonen.info/ The European Tour] and also [http://www.mingusmingusmingus.com/Mingus/unauthorized.html Sue Mingus' website] .]

How it came to pass that Mingus' "Astral Weeks" (recorded 1964) and Van Morrison's famous album "Astral Weeks" (recorded 1968) have the same title is a matter of speculation. [Two biographies of Van Morrison trace his naming of the song "Astral Weeks" to a visit in 1966 to an artist friend, Cezil McCartney, who had a painting on the wall that Morrison described as embodying 'astral projection' and which inspired him to name the song he was working on at the time "Astral Weeks" cite book |last=(Rogan |first=Johnny |title=No Surrender|date=2006-05-04 |publisher=Vintage |location=United Kingdom |isbn=9780099431831|pages=pp.173cite book |last=Turner |first=Steve |title=Too Late To Stop Now |date=1994-09-29 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=0747518246|pages=pp.89). It cannot be a coincidence that the two albums have the same title but who borrowed the name from whom remains uncertain. Some of the musicians and others that Morrison employed had worked with Mingus. However, the album was a bootleg and so it is not likely that Mingus would have had a hand in providing a name for it.]

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