Midweek pick, January 31st, 2024: Mingus blows up a storm
Charles Minugs: “Stormy Weather” from Mingus (Candid, 1961)
Charles Mingus: double bass
Ted Curson: trumpet
Eric Dolphy: alto sax
Dannie Richmond: drums
There is currently a storm raging along the coast of Norway, due to hit the Listening Booth headquarters around 10AM tomorrow, local time. Because of this, I’ve spent most of the afternoon making sure the house and the property is safe and secure. Sadly, that means that the planned Midweek Pick this week will have to be rescheduled. But I will not leave you with nothing. Instead I offer something a bit different, albeit something that might be well known to most readers of this humble Substack: Charles Mingus’ take on the classic “Stormy Weather”.
Mingus had played and recorded the tune previously, at least as early as 1954. This version, though, was recorded with Ted Curson, Eric Dolphy and Dannie Richmond during the same session that spawned the great album Mingus Presents Mingus, which came out in 1960, but released the following year as part of the album Mingus (both of those albums have recently been released in remastered versions. The above image is of the 2023 LP version of Mingus).
On this version, Mingus and Dolphy play the lead roles, opening the tune by themselves on double bass and alto sax respectively, Dolphy giving the melody a kind of sobbing dissonance, while Richmond and Curson for the most part stay in the background. It’s a great version, in my opinion, party because the sad nature of the song is laid bare, it’s mourning stretched out, and occasionally played as if they are barely able to keep it together — perhaps with the line “Just can't get my poor self together” in the back of their minds.