CHARLES MINGUS — Mingus Plays Piano (review)

CHARLES MINGUS — Mingus Plays Piano album cover

Album · 1964 · Post Bop

4/5 · 2012-05-24
dreadpirateroberts

When I first came across it, the idea of ‘Mingus Plays Piano’ was pretty exciting, I wondered if there would be some raucousness or bite, especially as the album was recorded only a few months after ‘The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.’ But instead this is quite introspective – and at times very moving – which in the end, makes it all the more pleasing.

And does not render the music toothless by any means.

In a way this album has a power similar to that of ‘The Black Saint…’ just in a more melancholy manner, and it might even have served as a great ‘come down’ for Mingus. A chance to step back and relax after the controlled chaos of recent recordings.

So is ‘Mingus Plays Piano’ an example of how constraint produces creativity – did using piano and only piano help him create such wonderful pieces? Or should we mythologise his and all creative genius and simply say, "it’s in him, it’s in Mingus"? Either way, the album demonstrates Mingus’ skill for improvisation and composition, along with a vulnerability that his bear-like, big band, double-bass-wielding persona may have eclipsed. At times it’s hard for me to reconcile something beautiful like ‘Myself When I am Real’ or the uncertainty in the snippet of studio chatter, with the man who was said to break one of Jimmy Knepper’s teeth and forever hamper the trombonist’s playing.

The album features a few standards, including ‘Body and Soul’ and ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You’ which are both lovely, but perhaps no more lovely than other performer’s takes. While I really like ‘I Can’t Get Started’ it’s the originals that are most exciting on ‘Mingus Plays Piano.’ ‘Old Portrait’ and the wonderful ‘Myself When I am Real’ (to later reappear in a different form on ‘Let My Children Hear Music’) which is reflected in the closing ‘Compositional Theme Story…’ The two make a pair of exploratory, often touching pieces of music, moments that the album would suffer most greatly without.

Elsewhere Mingus does hint at the wild feel his music generally has, with parts of ‘Meditations for Moses’ or the rumbling ‘Roland Kirk’s Message.’ It also lurks in the swagger found in ‘Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blues,’ a real surprise in the greater context of the album, as the piece takes a bluesy approach and brings a late-night bar scene to mind.

It’s probably the more reflective pieces on ‘Mingus Plays Piano’ that I enjoy most and while not every song presented is as memorable as the opener for instance, it’s probably going to be enjoyable for not only the curious Mingus fan, but fans of improvised piano in general. In fact, this does bring Keith Jarrett’s ‘Koln Concert’ to mind at times, serving as a nice precursor to what Jarrett would expand upon in greater detail and abandon years later, though here Mingus demonstrates restraint in terms of the scope of his ideas. One of my favourite albums with which to escape the hassles of day to day living, and one of my favourite Mingus records.