Epitaph (Charles Mingus composition) - Wikipedia

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Epitaph (Charles Mingus composition)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Epitaph is a composition by jazz musician Charles

Mingus. It is 4,235 measures long, takes more than two
hours to perform, and was only completely discovered
during the cataloguing process after his death. With the
help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and
instrumental parts were copied, and the work itself was
premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther
Schuller and produced by Mingus's widow, Sue, at Alice
Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, 10 years after his death, and
issued as a live album. It was performed again at several
concerts in 2007.
Accurately convinced that it would never be performed in
his lifetime, Mingus called his work Epitaph declaring that
it was written "for my tombstone."[2]

Epitaph

Live album by Charles Mingus

Released 1990
Recorded 1989

Contents
1 1962 version
2 1989 version
2.1 Track listings
2.2 Personnel
3 2007 version
3.1 Personnel
4 Score
5 References
6 External links

Genre

Jazz

Length

127:22

Label

Columbia

Producer Sue Mingus, Gunther Schuller, John

McClure

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source
Allmusic

Rating
[1]

1962 version
There was one ill-fated attempt to record some of this during Mingus's lifetime, in New York City on October
12, 1962. The album The Complete Town Hall Concert (United Artists UAJ 14024) includes the tracks
"Epitaph Pt. I" and "Epitaph Pt. II", as well as "Clark in the Dark", for trumpeter Clark Terry, who played in
the band.
The musicians included:
Saxes and woodwinds
Pepper Adams (baritone saxophone)
Danny Bank (contrabass clarinet)
George Berg (tenor saxophone)
Buddy Collette (alto saxophone)
Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone)
Charlie Mariano (alto saxophone)
Charles McPherson (alto saxophone)

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Romeo Penque (oboe)

Jerome Richardson (baritone saxophone)
Zoot Sims (tenor saxophone)
Trumpets
Eddie Armour
Rolf Ericson
Lonnie Hilyer
Ernie Royal
Clark Terry
Richard Williams
Snooky Young
Trombones and tuba
Eddie Bert
Jimmy Cleveland
Willie Dennis
Quentin Jackson
Britt Woodman
Paul Faulise (trombone)
Rhythm section
Warren Smith (vibraphone, percussion)
Les Spann (guitar)
Toshiko Akiyoshi (piano)
Jaki Byard (piano)
Charles Mingus (bass)
Milt Hinton (bass)
Dannie Richmond (drums)
Grady Tate (percussion)
A review by Bill Coss appeared in the December 6, 1962 edition of Down Beat titled "A Report of a Most
Remarkable Event", and was reprinted in the January 2005 edition.
The concert/recording was extremely disorganized. From the liner notes: "...this record represents a curious
combination of open recording session and concert on a New York City Town Hall stage that held thirty
musicians, two men still copying the music to be played, no play-back equipment, and a host of unbelievable
tensions."
From Martin Williams's review: "The occasion was supposed to have been a public recording date, but the
producers' announcements and ads somehow came out reading 'concert.' At one point during the
proceedings, Mingus shouted to his audience, advising, 'Get your money back!'"
From the Coss article:
The microphone Mingus grabbed had no amplification, but what he said, more or less, was: "Get
your money back. I couldn't stop you from coming here. The press agents lied to you. You've
been taken advantage of. Go out now and get your money back. I don't want you to think I've
done this to you. It was supposed to be a recording session, but Mr. George Wein, who is a fine
promoter, changed it into a concert. So get your money back. The company has lots of money. It
would take years to rehearse this music."

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The problems seem to have arisen because Mingus had piles of new music in his head, and wanted to stage
an open rehearsal which United Artists and producer Alan Douglas wanted to record and release. Then UA
moved up the date five weeks, Mingus kept writing even newer music while rehearsals were underway, the
musicians were unprepared (the Coss article suggests that in three previous rehearsals not one piece had
been played all the way through), and the audience - most of whom were apparently expecting a fully
rehearsed concert rather than a taping session with false starts, retakes and edit pieces - was flabbergasted.

1989 version
After Mingus's death, the score to Epitaph was rediscovered by Andrew Homzy, director of the jazz program
at Concordia University, Montreal. He had been invited by Sue Mingus to catalogue a trunkful of Mingus's
handwritten charts and in the process had discovered a vast assortment of orchestral pages written by
Mingus with measures numbered consecutively well into the thousands. After some investigation, Homzy
realized what it was that he had found and eventually managed to reassemble the Epitaph score. At that
point Homzy and Sue Mingus got in touch with Gunther Schuller, who put together an all-star orchestra to
play this very demanding piece of music. However, despite the stellar cast that was assembled, problems
were again encountered. Thirty years earlier, charts were being copied in the wings before the show. This
time, the charts were all computerized, but the software was buggy and again charts were being sight-read at
the last minute.
This was no mean feat. Epitaph resembles many other Mingus compositions in level of difficulty. Trumpeter
Wynton Marsalis, pointing at a passage in the score said, "That looks like something you would find in an
Etude Book... under 'Hard'."[3] And conductor Gunther Schuller stated "The only comparison I've ever been
able to find is the great iconoclastic American composer Charles Ives." Despite all these challenges,
however, the concert, at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Center in 1989, was a triumph, if ten years
too late for Charles Mingus to enjoy it. The same personnel performed the piece two days later at the Wolf
Trap Farm Park outside of Washington, DC. A double-CD was later released by Columbia/Sony Records.
The concert was also filmed, and broadcast on U.K. television around 1990. The 1989 recording at Alice
Tully Hall was recorded by John McClure and David Hewitt on Remote Recording Services' Silver Truck.

Track listings
Disc 1
1. Main Score, Pt. 1
2. Percussion Discussion
3. Main Score, Pt. 2
4. Started Melody
5. Better Get It in Your Soul
6. The Soul
7. Moods in Mambo
8. Self Portrait / Chill of Death
9. O.P. (Oscar Pettiford)
10. Please Don't Come Back from
the Moon

Disc 2
1. Monk, Bunk & Vice Versa
(Osmotin')
2. Peggy's Blue Skylight
3. Wolverine Blues
4. The Children's Hour of Dream
5. Ballad (In Other Words, I Am
Three)
6. Freedom
7. Interlude (The Underdog Rising)
8. Noon Night
9. Main Score, Reprise

Personnel
Conductor
Gunther Schuller

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Saxes and woodwinds

George Adams (tenor saxophone)
Phil Bodner (oboe, English horn, clarinet, tenor saxophone)
John Handy (clarinet, alto saxophone)
Dale Kleps (flute, contrabass clarinet)
Michael Rabinowitz (bassoon, bass clarinet)
Jerome Richardson (clarinet, alto saxophone, speech)
Roger Rosenberg (piccolo, flute, clarinet, baritone saxophone)
Gary Smulyan (clarinet, baritone saxophone)
Bobby Watson (clarinet, flute, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone)
Trumpets
Randy Brecker
Wynton Marsalis
Lew Soloff
Jack Walrath
Joe Wilder
Snooky Young
Trombones and tuba
Eddie Bert
Sam Burtis
Urbie Green
David Taylor
Britt Woodman
Paul Faulise (bass trombone)
Don Butterfield (tuba)
Rhythm section
Karl Berger (vibraphone, cowbell)
John Abercrombie (guitar)
Roland Hanna (piano)
John Hicks (piano)
Reggie Johnson (bass)
Ed Schuller (bass, guiro)
Victor Lewis (drums)
Daniel Druckman (percussion, tumba)

2007 version
Let My Children Hear Music again presented Epitaph in 2007, including new sections discovered since the
1989 premiere.
Wed, April 25, 2007, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York. Hosted by
Bill Cosby
Fri, April 27, 2007, 8pm, Tri-C Jazz Festival, Cleveland, Ohio
Wed, May 16, 2007, 8pm, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
Fri, May 18, 2007, 8pm, Symphony Center Chicago, Symphony Orchestra Chicago
The concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall was broadcast by NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story
/story.php?storyId=92884124) and available online.

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Personnel
Conductor
Gunther Schuller
Saxes and woodwinds
Michael Rabinowitz, bassoon
Douglas Yates, contrabass clarinet
Craig Handy
Steve Slagle
Abraham Burton, alto saxophones
Kathy Halvorson
Wayne Escoffery, tenor saxophones
Ronnie Cuber
Lauren Sevian, baritone saxophones
Trumpets
Ryan Kisor
Walter White
Jack Walrath
Dave Ballou
Alex Sipiagin
Kenny Rampton
Trombones and tuba
Sam Burtis
Ku-umba Frank Lacy
Andre Hayward
Conrad Herwig
Earl McIntyre
Dave Taylor
Howard Johnson
Rhythm section
Kenny Drew Jr.
George Colligan, pianos
Boris Kozlov
Christian McBride, basses
Johnathan Blake, drums
Christos Rafalides, vibraphone
Jack Wilkins, guitar
Mark Belair
David Nyberg, percussion

Score
In 2008, the full score of Epitaph was published by Let My Children Hear Music, Inc (The Charles Mingus
Institute), distributed by Hal Leonard.

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References
1. Kremsky, Stuart (2011). "Epitaph - Charles Mingus | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
2. http://jazztimes.com/articles/19392-charles-mingus-epitaph-lost-and-found
3. "Charles Mingus Triumph of the Underdog". YouTube. Retrieved 21 December 2014.

External links
John Sobol, "Meeting the Underdog" (http://www.johnsobol.com/mingus.html) in-depth personal
memoir of Epitaph's recreation, by John Sobol, a jazz critic who was at the rehearsals and show
Official site (http://mingusmingusmingus.com/MingusBands/epitaph.html)
Pop/Jazz; Reviving An 'Epitaph,' A Symphony By Mingus: Review By JON PARELES in the New
York Times (http://query.nytimes.com
/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3D61031F931A35755C0A96F948260&pagewanted=1)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epitaph_(Charles_Mingus_composition)&
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Categories: 1990 albums Charles Mingus albums Columbia Records albums 1962 compositions
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