CHARLES MINGUS — East Coasting (aka Charlie Mingus) (review)

CHARLES MINGUS — East Coasting (aka Charlie Mingus) album cover Album · 1957 · Hard Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
js
“East Coasting” is one of the more overlooked and under-rated albums in the Mingus discography. I think it slipped under the radar for a lot of jazz fans because it came out when Mingus was practically releasing a new album every couple months. Also, “East Coasting” doesn’t have a particularly artsy album cover or a unifying album theme like some of his other albums that have taken on legendary status, outside of the jazz world, with the art rock crowd and post-mo hipsters. Still, on a purely musical level, “East Coasting” holds up well against some of his more famous albums that might appear more ambitious at first.

Five of the six tunes on here are Mingus originals, and its on those five that Mingus displays this album’s salient feature; well developed long line melodies filled with interesting rhythmic changeups that sound like no one else. There is a bit of Ellington and Monk in these melodies, but these tunes remain as evidence that Mingus is still one of the better writers to this day. A nice surprise on here is the presence of Bill Evans on piano, not someone you expect to see on a Mingus album, and he sounds great, both with his silky impressionism on the ballades, and his hard jaggedy rhythmic figures on the up-tempo pieces. The three horn soloists are all solid, although maybe not as ‘out there’ as some other Mingus sidemen who will come along on later albums.

All of the cuts on here are good. You get one pastel ballad, three hard driving bop numbers and a couple other cuts that experiment a bit with changing tempos, and/or two different tempos playing at the same time. Overall, "East Coasting” holds up well against anything else Mingus was doing in the mid to late 50s. On a side note, its odd that this album is credited to 'Charlie' Mingus, as I understand he didn't like being called 'Charlie".
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