CHARLES MINGUS
Epitaph
After rehearsing and playing this composition in New York for many months, Schuller took it on the road, all 30 pieces. It’s not the kind of thing you cand play with a pick up band. They came to the Chicago Jazz Festival in about 1990. I didn’t know what to expect. A collaboration between Charles Mingus and Gunther Schuller could elicit chills. But the band personnel would, I was sure, make up for any weirdness. And much of it is weird, but good weird. I loved it when I first herd it and still do.
After rehearsing and playing this composition in New York for many months, Schuller took it on the road, all 30 pieces. It’s not the kind of thing you cand play with a pick up band. They came to the Chicago Jazz Festival in about 1990. I didn’t know what to expect. A collaboration between Charles Mingus and Gunther Schuller could elicit chills. But the band personnel would, I was sure, make up for any weirdness. And much of it is weird, but good weird. I loved it when I first herd it and still do.
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Musicologist/conductor Gunther Schuller discovered and restored this massive, 130-minute work by the late bassist, then presented it in concert in New York in 1989. Scored for 30-piece jazz orchestra, Epitaph is thought by Schuller to have been worked on between 1940 and 1962. Amazingly enough, six of the players specified in the score appear on this recording. Some of the sections are familiar to Charles Mingus fans from small-band recordings, particularly "Better Get It in Your Soul," "Monk, Bunk, & Vice Versa (Osmotin')," and "Peggy's Blue Skylight," and there was an attempt to record this work for United Artists in 1962. Schuller makes a case for this work as a unified, 18-movement work in his extensive notes to this set. There is definite evidence that this is how Mingus himself thought of it as well. There is plenty of great big-band writing here, and some fine soloists, notably Bobby Watson, Randy Brecker, George Adams, and Wynton Marsalis. Schuller says it best in his notes: "This recording, while not the perfect realization of Epitaph -- can that ever be achieved? -- is an enthusiastic, dedicated, loving recreation, which now at last brings Mingus' magnum opus to life." With luck, this release will send people back to his many excellent recordings.
AllMusic Review by Stuart Kremsky
Bass, Bassoon, Clarinet (Bass), Doubling Clarinet
Bass, Composer, Primary Artist
Bass, Guiro
Bass
Clarinet (Contrabass), Doubling Clarinet, Flute
Clarinet, Double Flute, Horn (English), Oboe, Sax (Tenor)
Clarinet, Double Sax, Flute, Sax (Alto), Sax (Soprano)
Conductor, Editing, Guest Artist, Liner Notes, Producer
Cowbell, Vibraphone
Doubling Clarinet, Flute, Piccolo, Sax (Baritone)
Doubling Clarinet, Guest Artist, Sax (Alto)
Doubling Clarinet, Sax (Alto), Saxophone
Doubling Clarinet, Sax (Baritone)
Drums, Guest Artist
Guest Artist, Guitar
Guest Artist, Piano
Guest Artist, Sax (Tenor), Saxophone
Guest Artist, Trumpet
Guest Artist, Trumpet
Percussion, Tumba
Piano
Trombone, Trombone (Bass)
Trombone, Trombone (Bass)
Trombone
Trombone
Trombone
Trombone
Trumpet
Trumpet
Trumpet
Trumpet
Tuba
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