Epitaph (Mingus)

Infobox Album
Name = Epitaph
Type = studio
Artist =


Released =
Recorded =
Genre =
Length =
Label =
Producer =
Reviews =
Last album =
This album =
Next album =

"Epitaph" is a composition by jazz musician Charles Mingus. It takes more than two hours to perform and was only completely discovered during the cataloguing process after his death. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller. This concert was produced by Mingus' widow, Sue, at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after his death, and again at several concerts in 2007.

Ground Breaking Work

"The New Yorker" wrote that "Epitaph" represents the first advance in jazz composition since Duke Ellington's "Black, Brown, and Beige" which was written in 1943. The New York Times said it ranked with the "most memorable jazz events of the decade". Convinced that it would never be performed in his lifetime, Mingus called his work "Epitaph" declaring that he wrote it "for my tombstone." Conductor Gunther Schuller said that Epitaph is "among the most important, prophetic, creative statement in the history of jazz.”

1962 Version

There was one ill-fated attempt to record some of this during Mingus's lifetime; a Town Hall concert on October 12, 1962. The title of the original album is "Town Hall Concert" and has two tracks marked "Epitaph Pt. I" and "Epitaph Pt. II", and other tracks including "Clark in the Dark", for trumpeter Clark Terry who played in the band. However, the endeavor never yielded a coherent whole like that achieved posthumously.

The musicians included:

Woodwinds
*Pepper Adams (baritone saxophone)
*Danny Bank (contrabass clarinet)
*George Berg (tenor saxophone)
*Buddy Collette (alto saxophone)
*Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone)
*Charlie Mariano (alto saxophone)
*Charles McPherson (alto saxophone)
*Romeo Penque (oboe)
*Jerome Richardson (baritone saxophone)
*Zoot Sims (tenor saxophone)

Trumpets
*Eddie Armour
*Rolf Ericson
*Lonnie Hilyer
*Ernie Royal
*Clark Terry
*Richard Williams
*Snooky Young

Trombones & Tuba
*Eddie Bert
*Jimmy Cleveland
*Willie Dennis
*Quentin Jackson
*Britt Woodman
*Paul Faulise (trombone)

Rhythm Section
*Warren Smith (vibraphone, percussion)
*Les Spann (guitar)
*Toshiko Akiyoshi (piano)
*Jaki Byard (piano)
*Charles Mingus (bass)
*Milt Hinton (bass)
*Dannie Richmond (drums)
*Grady Tate (percussion)

A review authored by Bill Coss subsequently appeared in the December 6, 1962 edition of Downbeat magazine titled simply "A Report of a Most Remarkable Event" (this was subsequently reprinted in the January 2005 edition of Downbeat).

The concert/recording was incredibly disorganized. From the liner notes: "...this record represents a curious combination of open recording session and concert on a New York City Town Hall stage that held thirty musicians, two men still copying the music to be played, no play-back equipment, and a host of unbelievable tensions."

From Martin Williams's review: "The occasion was supposed to have been a public recording date, but the producers' announcements and ads somehow came out reading 'concert.' At one point during the proceedings, Mingus shouted to his audience, advising, 'Get your money back!'"

From the Coss article: "The microphone Mingus grabbed had no amplification, but what he said, more or less, was: "Get your money back. I couldn't stop you from coming here. The press agents lied to you. You've been taken advantage of. Go out now and get your money back. I don't want you to think I've done this to you. It was supposed to be a recording session, but Mr. George Wein, who is a fine promoter, changed it into a concert. So get your money back. The company has lots of money. It would take years to rehearse this music"."

The problems seem to have arisen because Mingus had piles of new music in his head, and wanted to stage an open rehearsal which United Artists and producer Alan Douglas wanted to record and release. Then UA moved up the date five weeks, Mingus kept writing even newer music while rehearsals were underway, the musicians were unprepared (the Coss article suggests that in three previous rehearsals not one piece had been played all the way through), and the audience - most of whom were apparently expecting a fully rehearsed concert rather than a taping session with false starts, retakes and edit pieces - was flabbergasted.

1989 Version

After Mingus's death, the score to Epitaph was rediscovered by Andrew Homzy, director of the jazz program at Concordia University, Montreal. He had been invited by Sue Mingus to catalogue a trunkful of Mingus's handwritten charts and in the process had discovered a vast assortment of orchestral pages written by Mingus with measures numbered consecutively well into the thousands. After some investigation, Homzy realized what it was that he had found and eventually managed to reassemble the Epitaph score. At that point Homzy and Sue Mingus got in touch with Gunther Schuller, who put together an all-star orchestra to play this very demanding piece of music. However, despite the stellar cast that was assembled, problems were again encountered. 30 years earlier, charts were being copied in the wings before the show. This time, the charts were all computerized, but the software was buggy and again charts were being sight-read at the last minute.

This was no mean feat. "Epitaph" resembles many other Mingus compositions in level of difficulty. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pointing at a passage in the score said, "That looks like something you would find in an Etude Book ... under 'Hard'." And conductor Gunther Schuller stated "The only comparison I've ever been able to find is the great iconoclastic American composer Charles Ives." Despite all these challenges, however, the concert, at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Centre in 1989, was a triumph, if ten years too late for Charles Mingus to enjoy it. A double-CD was later released by Columbia/Sony Records. The concert was also filmed, and broadcast on U.K. television around 1990.

Track listings

Personnel

Conductor
*Gunther SchullerWoodwinds
*George Adams (tenor saxophone)
*Phil Bodner (oboe, English horn, clarinet, tenor saxophone)
*John Handy (clarinet, alto saxophone)
*Dale Kleps (flute, contrabass clarinet)
*Michael Rabinowitz (bassoon, bass clarinet)
*Jerome Richardson (clarinet, alto saxophone)
*Roger Rosenberg (piccolo, flute, clarinet, baritone saxophone)
*Gary Smulyan (clarinet, baritone saxophone)
*Bobby Watson (clarinet, flute, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone)Trumpets
*Randy Brecker
*Wynton Marsalis
*Lew Soloff
*Jack Walrath
*Joe Wilder
*Snooky YoungTrombones & Tuba
*Eddie Bert
*Sam Burtis
*Urbie Green
*David Taylor
*Britt Woodman
*Paul Faulise (bass trombone)
*Don Butterfield (tuba)Rhythm Section
*Karl Berger (vibraphone, cowbell)
*John Abercrombie (guitar)
*Sir Roland Hanna (piano)
*John Hicks (piano)
*Reggie Johnson (bass)
*Ed Schuller (bass, guiro)
*Victor Lewis (drums)
*Daniel Druckman (percussion, tumba)

2007 Version

Let My Children Hear Music again presented Epitaph in 2007, including new sections discovered since the 1989 premiere.
*Wed, Apr. 25 2007 Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York. Hosted by Bill Cosby.
*Fri, Apr. 27 2007 8pm Tri-C Jazz Festival Cleveland, OH
*Wed, May. 16 2007 8pm Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles CA
*Fri, May. 18 2007 8pm Symphony Center Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chicago, IL

The concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall was broadcast by [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92884124 NPR] and available online.

Personnel

Conductor
*Gunther SchullerWoodwinds

Bassoon
*Michael Rabinowitz

Contrabass Clarinet
*Douglas Yates

Alto Saxophone
*Craig Handy
*Steve Slagle
*Abraham Burton

Tenor Saxophone
*Kathy Halvorson
*Wayne Escoffery

Baritone Saxophone
*Ronnie Cuber
*Lauren Sevian

Trumpets
*Ryan Kisor
*Walter White
*Jack Walrath
*Dave Ballou
*Alex Sipiagin
*Kenny Rampton

Trombones & Tuba
*Sam Burtis
*Ku-umba Frank Lacy
*Andre Hayward
*Conrad Herwig
*Earl McIntyre
*Dave Taylor
*Howard Johnson

Rhythm Section

Piano
*Kenny Drew Jr.
*George ColliganBass
*Boris Kozlov
*Christian McBrideDrums
*Johnathan BlakeVibraphone
*Christos RafalidesGuitar
*Jack Wilkins

Percussion
*Mark Belair
*David Nyberg

CORE

In 2008 the full score of Epitaph was published by Hal Leonard.

External links

* [http://www.johnsobol.com/mingus.html John Sobol, "Meeting the Underdog"] – in-depth personal memoir of "Epitaph"'s recreation, by John Sobol, a jazz critic who was at the rehearsals and show
* [http://mingusmingusmingus.com/MingusBands/epitaph.html Official site]