Tag: Charles Mingus

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Charles Mingus’ Tribute to Duke Ellington at Monterey Jazz Festival 1964

Charles Mingus was a towering giant of American music, known for his powerhouse sound and authoritative technique, irascible personality and most importantly, his original compositions, which featured a blend of jazz, European classic music, bebop, avant-garde, blues, gospel and more, a sound that he famously dubbed “Mingus Music.”

The legendary bassist and composer’s Sunday afternoon set at the seventh annual Monterey Jazz Festival in 1964 was met with breathless praise from the likes of the New York Herald, where legendary critic and Monterey Jazz Festival co-founder Ralph J. Gleason wrote, “Mingus erased the memory of any bass player in jazz” while the San Francisco Chronicle opened its review, “Monterey beyond to Charles Mingus this year. All the way.” Considering that year’s festival also featured sets from Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis that wasn’t an easy feat, y’all.

Initially released on Mingus’ own short-lived mail order Jazz Workshop label and out of print for more than 40 years, Mingus at Monterey captures the legend at the height of his creativity and musical prowess. Perhaps the most consistently requested reissue by Mingus fans across the world, Mingus at Monterey proved to be a sensation upon its sold-out limited edition run for Record Store Day 2025 earlier this year, ranking as Redeye Distribution’s top-selling Record Store Day release while reaching the Top 20 on Billboard‘s Traditional Jazz Albums and Jazz Albums charts, #82 on the overall Top Catalog Albums chart and #102 on the Independent Albums Chart.

Candid Records, in conjunction with Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Inc. will celebrate the legend’s genius with the long-overdue and highly-anticipated reissue of Mingus at Monterey, which is slated for an October 10, 2025 release on CD, 2 LP vinyl and for the first time ever on all DSPs and streaming services.

The live album has been remastered by five-time Grammy Award-winning engineer Micheal Graves with vinyl mastering by renowned engineer Jeff Powell. The two LP vinyl set includes the album’s original gatefold jacket artwork, meticulously restored and reproduced.

The forthcoming wide release of Mingus at Monterey is heralded by a hard swinging, hard-charging rendition of the Billy Strayhorn-penned, Duke Ellington-performed jazz standard “Take the A Train,” that features some incredible solos from Charles McPherson (alto sax), Jaki Byard (piano), Lonnie Hilyer (trumpet), John Handy (tenor sax) and Dannie Richmond (drums) that’s performed as a medley dedicated to the legend’s musical hero, the equally legendary Duke Ellington.

Ellington was Mingus’ lodestar, the early influence, who showed the bassist and composer how music could simultaneously hold majesty, complexity and popular appeal. Mingus’ take on the classic, standard tune is deeply loving but in no means, straightforward. It seems to swing harder than the original, evoking the A train’s length run from 207th Street in Inwood to its final stop at Mott Avenue in Rockaway Beach — from its assorted characters and neighborhoods it passes through, to the pace of the train as it races between 125th Street and 59th Street. And while retaining the familiar melody, Mingus’ tribute to his hero is roomy enough to allow each member of the band to solo in a way that highlights their talents and sensibilities.

As Mingus said of the album at the time, “It’s taken me a long time to get to where I want musically. I just wish that I could give you that picture, that moment at Monterey along with this music. This is the sound that people heard at Monterey and the life of the music is there. That’s why I bring this record to the people. I give you the Monterey music as a token of love, as a memory.”

Throwback by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 102nd Birthday, Charles Mingus!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 102nd anniversary of Charles Mingus’ birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Belated 101st Birthday, Charles Mingus!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates the 101st anniversary of Charles Mingus’ birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Charlie Gabriel to Release Debut Album As Bandleader, Shares Intimate, Behind-The-Scenes Visual for “I’m Confessin'”

88 year-old Charlie Gabriel is a New Orleans-born and-based saxophonist, clarinetist and vocalist, who has had an incredibly lengthy music career: Gabriel’s first professional gig was back in 1943, sitting in for his father in New Orleans’ Eureka Brass Band. As a teenager, he relocated to Detroit, where he played with Lionel Hampton, whose band at the time included a young Charles Mingus. Gabriel then spent nine years with a group led by Cab Calloway drummer J.C. Heard.

For a period of time, Gabriel fronted a bebop group. He has also played with or toured with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin and a lengthy list of others before joining the legendary New Orleans jazz ensemble Preservation Hall Jazz Band in 2006. Since then, Gabriel, the most senior member of the group has developed a tight musical relationship with creative director, bassist and tuba player, Ben Jaffe, the son of the group’s co-founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe.

Gabriel signed to Sub Pop Records, who will be releasing the jazz legend’s full-length debut as a bandleader 89, which is slated for digital release on February 25, 2022 and a July 1, 2022 physical copy — CD/LP, etc. — release, a few days before his 89th birthday.

Although he’s faced plenty of challenges over the course of his almost eight decade music career, none likely rank with the death of his brother and last living sibling Leonard to COVID-19. For the first time ever, Gabriel put down his horn, filling his days and weeks instead with dark reflection, a stubborn yet understandable despondency broken now and then by regular chess matches in the studio kitchen of Pres Hall leader Ben Jaffe, who was working overtime to bring his friend and bandmate some light.

One of those afternoons also included guitarist Joshua Starkman, who was sitting off in a corner playing his guitar and half-watching Jaffe and Gabriel play chess from a distance. When Charlie returned the next day, he brought his saxophone. “I was just inspired to try it, to play again. It had been a long time, and a guitar makes me feel free. I do love the sound of a piano, but it takes up a lot of a space, keeps me kind of boxed in.”

“We had no particular plan, or any particular insight on what we were gonna do. But we were enjoying what we were doing, jamming, having a musical conversation,” Gabriel adds, further musing, “Musical conversations cancel out complications.”

Interestingly, that day wound up being the first session for 89, almost entirely the work of Gabriel, Jaffe and Starkman, recorded mostly in the kitchen by Matt Aguiluz. Charlie Gabriel plays tenor sax and clarinet on the album, Starkman plays guitar and Jaffe plays bass, drums and keys throughout the album.

The album’s material includes six standards, including “Stardust,” “I’m Confessin'” and “Three Little Words,” which the New Orleans legend describes as “standard material that every musician, if they’re an older musician like myself, will have played throughout their career. Every time I play one of these tunes the interpretation is a little bit different.” The album also includes two originals written by Gabriel, “Yellow Moon” and “The Darker It Gets” — and while being Gabriel’s debut, it also marks a return to his first instrument, clarinet on many of the album’s tracks. “The clarinet is the mother of the saxophone,” he says. “I started playing clarinet early in life, and this [taught me] the saxophone.” 

89‘s first single sees Gabriel and his bandmates play a gorgeous and utterly charming rendition of the old standard “I’m Confessin.'” Centered around a subtle re-arrangement for jazz guitar, clarinet, saxophone and bass, Gabriel’s version to my ears manages to meet Peggy Lee and Louis Armstrong somewhere in the middle, while being roomy enough for Gabriel’s vocals, which balance a wizened raspiness with an sweet tenderness. Simply put, it’s the sort of vulnerable and endearingly honest love song that we just don’t get anymore — and that’s just one why I love it so much.

Directed by Alex Hennen Payne, the recently released video for “I’m Confessin'” is shot in a gorgeous and cinematic black and white and captures the 89 sessions with a warm and loving intimacy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: the bird and the bee Cover Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” with Dave Grohl on “The Late Late Show with James Corden”

Comprised of singer/songwriter Inara George and seven time Grammy Award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin, who has worked with the likes of Sia,Adele, Beck, Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney, the Los Angeles-based indie pop act the bird and the bee can trace their origins to when they met  while working on George’s 2005 solo debut All Rise. Bonding over a mutual love of 80s pop and rock, the duo decided to continue to work together in a jazz-influenced electro pop project.

The Los Angeles indie pop duo’s debut EP Again and Again and Again and Again was released in late 2006. They quickly followed that up with their self-titled full-length debut in early 2007 — and with their earliest releases George and Kurstin quickly developed a reputation for bringing a breezy elegance to their work, which finds them putting their own idiosyncratic twist on time-bending indie pop.

Although serving as the long-awaited follow up to 2015’s Recreational Love, the bird and the bee’s fifth album, Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Van Halen actually closely follows 2010’s critically applauded Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 1: A Tribute to Hall & Oates. And while Van Halen‘s most anthemic and beloved work may initially seem like an unlikely vessel for the Los Angeles-based duo’s sound and approach, George and Kurstin are both lifelong fans of David Lee Roth-era Van Halen. As the story goes back in 2007, George caught her first-ever Van Halen show, during the first tour to feature David Lee Roth as the band’s frontman since 1985. George was so charmed by Roth’s presence, that after that show, she approached Kurstin about writing a song for Roth. The end result was the swooning serenade “Diamond Dave,” which appeared on their 2008 sophomore album Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future. “We asked him to be in the video, but instead he signed a picture and gave me the yellow top hat he’d worn at the show I saw, which I thought was very sweet,” George says in press notes. “When we were trying to figure out who to cover for the second volume of Interpreting the Masters, we were both a little bit like, ‘Oh my god, can we really do it?’ But then we just went for it.”

Slated for an August 2, 2019 release through No Expectations/Release Me Records, the duo’s fifth album features an impressive backing band of guest musicians including Justin Meldal Johnsen (bass), who has worked with Beck and Nine Inch Nails; Joey Waronker (drums), who has worked with R.E.M and Elliott Smith; and Omar Hakim(drums), who has worked with the David Bowie and Miles Davis assisting the duo in making familiar David Lee Roth-era Van Halen anthems completely their own, imbuing even the most over-the-top tracks with a slinky intimacy.

Interestingly, for Kurstin, an accomplished jazz pianist, who once studied with Jaki Byard, a pianist that once played in Charles Mingus‘ band, one of the greatest challenges he had translating Eddie Van Halen’s virtuoso guitar work into piano arrangements that kept some of the spirit and vibe of the original. “I know there’s a jazz influence with the Van Halen brothers, so I tried to channel some of the things that I felt might’ve influenced Eddie,” Kurstin notes. “In a way ‘Eruption’ is almost like a piece of classical music, so I mostly treated it that way as I interpreted it for piano,” he adds, referring to the iconic instrumental guitar solo from Van Halen’s self-titled debut. 

While creating arrangements around Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work will reveal the duo’s ingenuity and playfulness as interpreters and arrangers paired with a deeply nuanced reading of the material, which is influenced by their deep and profound emotional connection to the band.“I remember being 10-years-old and seeing their videos and feeling both excited and totally terrified—I responded to them in this very visceral way,” George says in press notes. Kurstin, who also is a lifelong fan, actually got a chance to work with Eddie Van Halen in the early 80s when the Grammy Award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist was a 12 year-old member of Dweezil Zappa’s band. “I got to hang out with him in the studio and go backstage when Van Halen played The Forum, which was a really big moment for my younger self,” Kurstin recalls.

Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Van Halen‘s album’s second single “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” is a slinky New Wave-like take on the original, centered around an angular and propulsive bass line, atmospheric electronics, shimmering and arpeggiated synths and while bearing an uncanny resemblance to New Order and It’s Blitz!-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the track is imbued with a feverish quality.

While much of Van Halen’s material, whether it was David Lee Roth-era or Sammy Hagar-era is seemingly familiar to the point of well-worn, the first two singles off Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Van Halen finds the duo crafting a loving and thoughtful take on beloved material. And they manage to do so in a way that retains familiar elements but within a playful, post-modern, decidedly feminist fashion. 

The duo were recently on The Late Late Show with James Corden, where they performed their sultry rendition of “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” with a special guest — Dave Grohl, who played drums. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of singer/songwriter Inara George and seven time Grammy Award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin, who has worked with the likes of Sia, Adele, Beck, Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney, the Los Angeles-based indie pop act the bird and the bee can trace their origins to when they met  while working on George’s 2005 solo debut All Rise. Bonding over a mutual love of 80s pop and rock, the duo decided to continue to work together in a jazz-influenced electro pop project.

The Los Angeles indie pop duo’s debut EP Again and Again and Again and Again was released in late 2006. They quickly followed that up with their self-titled full-length debut in early 2007 — and with their earliest releases George and Kurstin quickly developed a reputation for bringing a breezy elegance to their work, which finds them putting their own idiosyncratic twist on time-bending indie pop.

Although serving as the long-awaited follow up to 2015’s Recreational Love, the bird and the bee’s fifth album, Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Van Halen actually closely follows 2010’s critically applauded Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 1: A Tribute to Hall & Oates. And while Van Halen‘s most anthemic and beloved work may initially seem like an unlikely vessel for the Los Angeles-based duo’s sound and approach, George and Kurstin are both lifelong fans of David Lee Roth-era Van Halen. As the story goes back in 2007, George caught her first-ever Van Halen show, during the first tour to feature David Lee Roth as the band’s frontman since 1985. George was so charmed by Roth’s presence, that after that show, she approached Kurstin about writing a song for Roth. The end result was the swooning serenade “Diamond Dave,” which appeared on their 2008 sophomore album Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future. “We asked him to be in the video, but instead he signed a picture and gave me the yellow top hat he’d worn at the show I saw, which I thought was very sweet,” George says in press notes. “When we were trying to figure out who to cover for the second volume of Interpreting the Masters, we were both a little bit like, ‘Oh my god, can we really do it?’ But then we just went for it.”

Slated for an August 2, 2019 release through No Expectations/Release Me Records, the duo’s fifth album features an impressive backing band of guest musicians including Justin Meldal Johnsen (bass), who has worked with Beck and Nine Inch Nails; Joey Waronker (drums), who has worked with R.E.M and Elliott Smith; and Omar Hakim (drums), who has worked with the David Bowie and Miles Davis assisting the duo in making familiar David Lee Roth-era Van Halen anthems completely their own, imbuing even the most over-the-top tracks with a slinky intimacy.

Interestingly, for Kurstin, an accomplished jazz pianist, who once studied with Jaki Byard, a pianist that once played in Charles Mingus‘ band, one of the greatest challenges he had translating Eddie Van Halen’s virtuoso guitar work into piano arrangements that kept some of the spirit and vibe of the original. “I know there’s a jazz influence with the Van Halen brothers, so I tried to channel some of the things that I felt might’ve influenced Eddie,” Kurstin notes. “In a way ‘Eruption’ is almost like a piece of classical music, so I mostly treated it that way as I interpreted it for piano,” he adds, referring to the iconic instrumental guitar solo from Van Halen’s self-titled debut. 

While creating arrangements around Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work will reveal the duo’s ingenuity and playfulness as interpreters and arrangers paired with a deeply nuanced reading of the material, which is influenced by their deep and profound emotional connection to the band.“I remember being 10-years-old and seeing their videos and feeling both excited and totally terrified—I responded to them in this very visceral way,” George says in press notes. Kurstin, who also is a lifelong fan, actually got a chance to work with Eddie Van Halen in the early 80s when the Grammy Award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist was a 12 year-old member of Dweezil Zappa’s band. “I got to hang out with him in the studio and go backstage when Van Halen played The Forum, which was a really big moment for my younger self,” Kurstin recalls.

Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Van Halen‘s first single is the duo’s  “Panama,” which finds the them turning the beloved, power chord-based arena rock anthem into a sultry club banger, centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, bright blasts of twinkling piano and cowbell, a wobbling Bootsy Collins-like bass line and George’s sensual vocal delivery. The album’s second single “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” is a slinky New Wave-like take on the original, centered around an angular and propulsive bass line, atmospheric electronics, shimmering and arpeggiated synths and while bearing an uncanny resemblance to New Order and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the track is imbued with a feverish quality.

While much of Van Halen’s material, whether it was David Lee Roth-era or Sammy Hagar-era is seemingly familiar to the point of well-worn, the first two singles off Interpreting the Masters, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Van Halen finds the duo crafting a loving and thoughtful take on beloved material. And they manage to do so in a way that retains familiar elements but within a playful, post-modern, decidedly feminist fashion.

 

 

The bird and the bee will be embarking on a 15 date North American tour throughout the summer, and the tour will include an August 17, 2019 stop at Elsewhere. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Tour Dates
08/02/19 – Los Angeles, CA @ John Anson Ford Theater # – TICKETS
08/11/19 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club * – TICKETS
08/12/19 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village * – TICKETS
08/14/19 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre * – TICKETS
08/15/19 – Providence, RI @ Columbus Theatre * – TICKETS
08/16/19 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live * – TICKETS
08/17/19 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere * –TICKETS
08/20/19 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle * – TICKETS
08/21/19 – Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5 * – TICKETS
08/22/19 – Birmingham, AL @ The Saturn * – TICKETS
08/24/19 – Dallas, TX @ Trees * – TICKETS
08/25/19 – Austin, TX @ Parish * – TICKETS
08/28/19 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom * – TICKETS
08/29/19 – San Diego, CA  @ Casbah * – TICKETS
08/30/19 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop * ^ – TICKETS
# = featuring Dave Grohl on drums and Justin Meldel-Johnsen on bass
* = support from Samantha Sidley and Alex Lilly
^ = additional support from DJ Aaron Exelson
New Audio by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first three albums in five years –2011’s Shoot! , 2013’s All Of Them Witches and 2014’s Enfant Terrible — The Hedvig Mollestad Trio have managed to receive praise and attention internationally from both jazz and rock critics across the blogosphere and major media outlets, including Rolling Stone‘s senior editor David Fricke and veteran writer Richard Williams among others for a sound that meshes elements acid jazz, free jazz, jazz fusion, but heavy metal, psych rock, stoner rock and prog rock in a way that to my ears reminds me quite a bit of Ecstatic Vision, Hawkwind, Rush, and others. And as a result, the band has placed themselves on a growing list of Norwegian avant jazz ‘n’ rock/free metal/free jazz acts that have received attention across their homeland, Scandinavia and elsewhere that includes Elephant9, Grand General, Bushman’s Revenge, Krokofant and Scorch, the renowned act led by Finnish guitarist Raoul Björkenheim, who have been long considered as the forefront of the movement.

The trio comprised of Hedvig Mollestad (guitar), Ellen Brekken (bass) and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad (drums) just released their latest effort Black Stabat Mater yesterday and reportedly, the material on the album is heavily indebted to the newfound confidence and self-assuredness the members of the band found during an intense touring schedule; but also revealing a band that has expanded upon the sound that initially won them international attention. In fact, Black Stabat Mater‘s four compositions still manage to possess the improvised feel of jazz fusion and free jazz but while arguably being the most prog rock/stoner rock/heavy metal leaning material they’ve released to date, essentially crafting an album that effortlessly blurs the lines of jazz, metal, stoner rock and prog rock — and in a way that nods to the jazz fusion experiments of the 70s while being remarkably contemporary.

Considered the effort’s first two tracks “Approaching: On Arrival” is an expansive, twisting and turning composition that begins with Bjørnstad’s jazz-like syncopation, Brekken’s sinuous yet propulsive bass lines and Mollestad’s bluesy guitar chords during the composition’s lengthy introduction before quickly morphing into a stoner rock and prog rock stomp, complete with some serious guitar pyrotechnics. At the 7:15 mark the composition becomes a wildly free-flowing and kaleidoscopic array of feedback, thundering drumming, blistering guitar playing reminiscent of John Coltrane‘s late, experimental work — and in a similar fashion, the composition possesses a mind and conscious-altering quality. “In The Court Of The Trolls” is composition comprised of alternating sludgy, prog rock/stoner rock and trippy psychedelic, acid jazz sections and while much like the preceding track feels completely loose and improvised, also reveals a band that’s incredibly tight; in fact, there’s the sense that one musician puts an idea down and the rest will follow, knowing exactly where and when to take it. Track 4 “-40 is a gorgeous and contemplative composition featuring gently swirling and undulating feedback with a gorgeous guitar solo while album closing track “Somebody Else Should Be On That Bus” begins with a heavy, Charles Mingus-styled bass introduction before turning into a sludgy, power chord-heavy composition that sounds as though it were inspired by Queens of the Stone Age and others.

So far, 2016 has bee a mixed year for me as far as album-length releases but I may have stumbled across one of my favorite releases this year, as the Norwegian trio specialize in an uncompromising and exciting genre meshing and genre defying sound. But I think that the album should also reveal that Hedvig Mollestad is arguably one of the best guitarists that everyone should know right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The Gainesville, FL-based quartet of Morningbell has been incredibly prolific over their 9 year history as they’ve released 5 albums and 9 EPs. Released, last year, Boa Noite, the band’s sixth effort continued the band’s prolific reputation while revealing […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Michael-Louis Smith at DROM 6/4/13

Michael-Louis Smith DROM June 4, 2013 Guitarist, Michael-Louis Smith, along with his backing band of Diallo House (bass), Stacy Dillard (tenor saxophone and soprano saxophone), Ismail Lawal (drums) with the addition of Victor Gould (piano) […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The Gainesville, FL-based quartet of Morningbell has been incredibly prolific as they’ve released 5 albums and 9 EPs in the past 9 years. Boa Noite, the band’s sixth effort continues the band’s prolific reputation while revealing that they’re a band […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The Gainesville, FL-based quartet of Morningbell has been incredibly prolific as they’ve released 5 albums and 9 EPs in the past 9 years. Boa Noite, the band’s sixth effort continues the band’s prolific reputation while revealing that […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Jason Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola 3/4/13

Jason Marsalis  Jazz at Lincoln Center, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola March 4, 2013 There are few families who have had quite the same impact on jazz – hell, on modern music over the course of […]