 |
| Track list: 1. Folk Forms, No. 1 2. Original Faubus Fables 3. What Love? 4. All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother Running time: 45 minutes Released: 1961 |
Uh, what? Seriously, that title is shocking, and it makes my post title even worse. You present yourself? Good for you.
The other opening comment I have is that I am not sure where this particular album came from. I have had Mingus Ah Um for a long time, and remember explicitly buying that as an entry point to the man's music but I don't recall what I thought of it. I am shocked, then, to find no fewer than 6 Mingus discs in my library. Lets hope I like his work!
We open with a spoken intro, so I guess that's where the Presents comes in. This was performed live at some point, it seems. The first musical sounds are bassy, tense, then more strutting. This opening number builds nicely, then recedes from a peak in a nice organic way. It is a promising start, unlike my progress on the project in 2017. Too many factors - some genuine barriers, others more imagined than real - have conspired to prevent me doing anything here for more weeks than I like to think about. One significant one was that I wasn't in a "jazzy" mood - I am still not, really, but my guilt at not progressing things here finally caught up to me and prodded me into action. Still, I find myself liking the staccato nature of Mingus' bass here, an attribute that seems to transcribe itself to the playing around him. Each line sounds a little disjointed as a result, but in a most disarming way.
There is a cacophonous joy to things. A barely-coordinated freshness to the sound. It's not all good - there is the almost inevitable drum solo which I could really have done without - but it is nicely crafted. One interesting aspect is the occasionally audible vocalisations from the band, encouraging each other and keeping things on track. This is a really cohesive unit, despite the way the jumps and pauses in the individual efforts lend the more carefree, improvisational vibe. I have to say though that by the time the 13 minutes of the opener are done I am rather glad for the change. The wawing of the trumpet was getting quite wearing by the end.
Another introduction - Wikipedia suggests this is an affectation borne from months of working on these tunes in performance, so I guess I was right earlier - and a smooth sound straight from a noir soundtrack. There is a lovely but sleazy air to the horn on Original Faubus Fables, a very resonant and redolent sound. The bass and drums here feel much more understated, more standard. This is not to denigrate them - there is a well grooved nature to the play, making it silky smooth in places.
Then it all goes a little more challenging.
The horns become sharper of tone, piercingly loud and more than a touch disharmonious. It scratches at my ear drums a little with an insistent and demanding edge to the play. The smooth tune is gone and a more broken piece emerges from the play. The bass and drums are still there, still solid, but the top end and tune loses me entirely. The other stand out characteristic of the second tune is the discussion-like vocals that come and go, most noticeably at start and end of the number. I don't manage to make out the words but it certainly does something to the piece from the tonal point of view.
Though this was recorded in 1960, the sounds to me are so much more associated with the 40s and 50s America as depicted in films of the era (or those harking back). This style of jazz, horn led mood pieces, conjure a very cliched view - almost always of LA, and almost always of the sorts of folks that James Ellroy would write about. What a warped view of the world film and TV are wont to give us.
What Love? is a rambling piece, with noticeable pauses and quiet moments. A prolonged bass solo typifies this. I have lost any sense of narrative from the tune - though I suppose as it runs 15 minutes that really isn't a surprise. This section - in the middle of things by my guess - is a hodgepodge of sounds with little to endear them to the listener. The slow, meandering mood piece can work, but it needs more than this - single voices popping up for unstructured noodling is not an interesting listen. This is more frustrating than anything else - the first couple of tracks had their faults but both also showcased some really tight synergies between the players. Here it is each in turn squeaking, squawking and spluttering through far too long of dead air. The sounds they produce are not even pleasant in places - quite apart from being without much context and disjointed. This pain lasts the best part of 8 minutes (possibly more), going from when I really cottoned on to what was happening to when more sense of cohesion returns to the tune. By that time the 15 minutes are almost up and I have lost the positive impression that I found myself enjoying during track 1.
The final piece is the shortest of the four numbers, except in the titling sense. Wow. All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother is a very odd title - it doesn't scan well, the length is unusual, and it lacks particular context to offset the very strange word choice. Why not just say "if you were Sigmund Freud's child"?
In any case, this is a pacier piece, which is nice, though I find myself rather inured to any charms it may have. My lack of jazzy mood has returned with a vengeance. That the piece gets repetitive - a particularly blaring horn wavering between two notes is a key perpetrator here - further alienates me, pushing the composition further from my appreciation with every see-saw between those tones.
I think jazz of a certain age walks a fine line between caricature, genius and cacophony. Here it spills into the latter with a sizable serving of the first and not enough of the piece in the middle. There were moments where the playing came together perfectly, but they were outnumbered by those where it all fell apart, or pulled in a direction that made me wince. This one was not for me.
We open with a spoken intro, so I guess that's where the Presents comes in. This was performed live at some point, it seems. The first musical sounds are bassy, tense, then more strutting. This opening number builds nicely, then recedes from a peak in a nice organic way. It is a promising start, unlike my progress on the project in 2017. Too many factors - some genuine barriers, others more imagined than real - have conspired to prevent me doing anything here for more weeks than I like to think about. One significant one was that I wasn't in a "jazzy" mood - I am still not, really, but my guilt at not progressing things here finally caught up to me and prodded me into action. Still, I find myself liking the staccato nature of Mingus' bass here, an attribute that seems to transcribe itself to the playing around him. Each line sounds a little disjointed as a result, but in a most disarming way.
There is a cacophonous joy to things. A barely-coordinated freshness to the sound. It's not all good - there is the almost inevitable drum solo which I could really have done without - but it is nicely crafted. One interesting aspect is the occasionally audible vocalisations from the band, encouraging each other and keeping things on track. This is a really cohesive unit, despite the way the jumps and pauses in the individual efforts lend the more carefree, improvisational vibe. I have to say though that by the time the 13 minutes of the opener are done I am rather glad for the change. The wawing of the trumpet was getting quite wearing by the end.
Another introduction - Wikipedia suggests this is an affectation borne from months of working on these tunes in performance, so I guess I was right earlier - and a smooth sound straight from a noir soundtrack. There is a lovely but sleazy air to the horn on Original Faubus Fables, a very resonant and redolent sound. The bass and drums here feel much more understated, more standard. This is not to denigrate them - there is a well grooved nature to the play, making it silky smooth in places.
Then it all goes a little more challenging.
The horns become sharper of tone, piercingly loud and more than a touch disharmonious. It scratches at my ear drums a little with an insistent and demanding edge to the play. The smooth tune is gone and a more broken piece emerges from the play. The bass and drums are still there, still solid, but the top end and tune loses me entirely. The other stand out characteristic of the second tune is the discussion-like vocals that come and go, most noticeably at start and end of the number. I don't manage to make out the words but it certainly does something to the piece from the tonal point of view.
Though this was recorded in 1960, the sounds to me are so much more associated with the 40s and 50s America as depicted in films of the era (or those harking back). This style of jazz, horn led mood pieces, conjure a very cliched view - almost always of LA, and almost always of the sorts of folks that James Ellroy would write about. What a warped view of the world film and TV are wont to give us.
What Love? is a rambling piece, with noticeable pauses and quiet moments. A prolonged bass solo typifies this. I have lost any sense of narrative from the tune - though I suppose as it runs 15 minutes that really isn't a surprise. This section - in the middle of things by my guess - is a hodgepodge of sounds with little to endear them to the listener. The slow, meandering mood piece can work, but it needs more than this - single voices popping up for unstructured noodling is not an interesting listen. This is more frustrating than anything else - the first couple of tracks had their faults but both also showcased some really tight synergies between the players. Here it is each in turn squeaking, squawking and spluttering through far too long of dead air. The sounds they produce are not even pleasant in places - quite apart from being without much context and disjointed. This pain lasts the best part of 8 minutes (possibly more), going from when I really cottoned on to what was happening to when more sense of cohesion returns to the tune. By that time the 15 minutes are almost up and I have lost the positive impression that I found myself enjoying during track 1.
The final piece is the shortest of the four numbers, except in the titling sense. Wow. All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother is a very odd title - it doesn't scan well, the length is unusual, and it lacks particular context to offset the very strange word choice. Why not just say "if you were Sigmund Freud's child"?
In any case, this is a pacier piece, which is nice, though I find myself rather inured to any charms it may have. My lack of jazzy mood has returned with a vengeance. That the piece gets repetitive - a particularly blaring horn wavering between two notes is a key perpetrator here - further alienates me, pushing the composition further from my appreciation with every see-saw between those tones.
I think jazz of a certain age walks a fine line between caricature, genius and cacophony. Here it spills into the latter with a sizable serving of the first and not enough of the piece in the middle. There were moments where the playing came together perfectly, but they were outnumbered by those where it all fell apart, or pulled in a direction that made me wince. This one was not for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment