Episode 69: Charles Mingus's "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady"

Episode Transcript
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Kyle (00:00):
Today we're talking about The Black Saint and the
Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus.

Cliff (00:03):
So instead of building a huge on-ramp, how about we just come right
out front and say, here's why we'retalking about this record and why I'm
gonna need you listener to trust us.
Probably if you don'talready like this one.
Because it's a good one for good reasons.
But it's gonna probably test you in afew different ways almost immediately.

(00:27):
And it's worth it.
It's worth it for some specific reasons.

Kyle (00:32):
If you're joining us from Brooks and Dunn, we'll see you later.

Cliff (00:38):
Yeah.
Jeff Buckley's, grace, this isnot, and that is gonna be okay.

Kyle (00:43):
Although I would connect them in that one, Jeff Buckley would've
loved this record if he didn't,

Cliff (00:50):
Mm,

Kyle (00:51):
if he didn't know it, if it wasn't in his well-established canon.
I, I don't know.
but two, grace is one of the fewrecords that we collectively said during
recording it doesn't matter what yourflavor is, you have to hear this record.
And we, and we don't saythat about many of them.
I hesitate to say that about this one, butI do feel like, for reasons that I think

(01:15):
you're gonna articulate this is probablyin the same, can't, it's not like you're,
you're definitely going to enjoy it.
Like Grace is like, I can'timagine anybody listening to
that record and not loving it.
But it's also essential.
This is a bit of the inverse, whereit's like, you very well might hate it,
but your duty as a person devoted tomusic is to seek out records like this.

(01:40):
Like thi this is a seminalrecord in that it will make you
a better listener and thinker.
Almost guaranteed, right?
Something like that.

Cliff (01:50):
Yes, and not abstractly.
So for specific reasons, withspecific intention in really specific
ways, which I think is great.
And on this one in particular, we comearound to jazz albums every now and then.
And we both, I think, have our ownversion of, not breathing for a few
minutes when we realize we're gonnahave to now talk about this in public,

(02:14):
because jazz has a real thick externalshell that you feel like you gotta
kind of know how to get into, or elseyou're gonna really look stupid in
public talking, thinking, liking jazz.

Kyle (02:27):
It's a party with a dress code and you're like, fuck, I'm
wearing a Hawaiian shirt today.

Cliff (02:32):
yes.
So here's train stop number one onthe train of, you can like jazz too.
It's not that complicated.
Let's use your dress code example.
Everyone talks about the dress code onthe outside to filter the types of people
who are gonna walk through the door.
But once you get in, you realizethat most everybody's naked anyway.
Like it's a ruse to get you to getmildly serious or else to bring your

(02:57):
like full emotional self to the thing.
And this record in particular is areally good example of that because
Charles Mingus specifically doesn'twant you to think of this as jazz and
didn't write it as jazz and didn't writeit as a band leader of a jazz band.
And has all of these reasons whynot only is it not jazz, but he also

(03:19):
doesn't want you to think of it as notjazz either, because labeling it to
begin with is limiting your abilityto embrace what he is composing.
And like that is, that's thefirst of all, that's my shit.
It like 100% on level.
That is, that level of relationshipto music is deeply connected to

(03:40):
me, uh, and how I experience art.
But.
We usually don't get a musical razorlike razor in the philosophical
sense like we do with this one.
Where if you can allow yourself tostart understanding some important
parts of what's happening simply byallowing yourself to listen and learn,

(04:00):
you will actually start unlockingways to understand music over the
last 60 plus years that came after it.
not abstractly, not in the sense oflike he inspired other people to play.
No, no, no.
Like specific things that happen onthis record create specific things
that we now understand about jazz.
And that actually changed theway that people composed music to

(04:22):
begin with in response to this.

Kyle (04:25):
I'm excited to hear your take on some of those signposts because
I very much took in this record asa lot of people talk about tonal and
textural qualities of this record.
So like, even if it hits you as justa wall of stuff for a while, that's
okay and good, but it's fun to keepchipping away at because I think for

(04:48):
the density of what's happening, it'sgreat that there's not too terribly
much runtime, 39, 40 minutes I think.
it cycles back pretty quickly andthe, the, abrasive to agreeable ratio
is just about perfectly balanced.
I think.
it's not full on, coltrane's ohm,it's, it's not Albert Aler full.

(05:15):
It's, it's not freak, freak out badasset in public type experience.
It's very tuneful it.
To your point about, changingthe way people thought about
composition and whatever.
There's also an encyclopedic elementthat I think is very interesting.
it's like talking about art andartists where there's a cliche.

(05:37):
The, the cliche emerges for a reason,but then there's actually specific
things about it that are interesting.
Yes, he brings a lot of influences orwhatever to this record, but once you
get past the trope of that idea, youfind that he does it in a really elegant
way, one, and that he doesn't ever doanything straight ahead, not a bebop

(05:58):
record or a swing record or whatever.
it reexamines a lot of the basicelements of a form, to critique
what gives them their power.
I thought of the most powerful sort oflike baseline things that I heard or
read about him anywhere in, in studyingMingus, the person, which I, I think this
is actually one of the artist exampleswhere it's really good to do that.

(06:21):
I don't, definitely don'tthink that's always the case.
And you know, you and I have sortof danced on that tightrope over
the course of these episodes.
but one of the people in the MingusUnderdog documentary, which you can watch
for free on Tubi, and I would recommend

Cliff (06:36):
Hell yeah.
Tuby to be coming in strong again.

Kyle (06:39):
Hell yeah.
Like it's the, the second best thingto canopy the free through your
local library streaming service.
All the best stuff is onCanopy or Tubi right now.
All the mind expansion can bedone there totally for free.
but the guy and I, I can't remember hisname, but he was the guy doing the, doing

(06:59):
the big band thing in homage to Mingus.
So sort of like a Mingus scholar let'ssay, said that with Mingus genres, quote,
don't show seam of their insertions,they're sublimated through the raw
self, quote unquote raw self of Mingus.
And I just really like that ideathat a lot of people, multiple

(07:21):
people use the word volcanicto describe Mingus the person.
So you could easily get into the likebuddy rich, big personality thing
that, that's its own rabbit hole.
I think it is a little more compellinghere than normal, even if it does
get a little soapy in places.
So you have a big personality withlike capital B, capital F, big
feelings that he's working through.

(07:43):
He's got an incredible life storythat I think validate the big feelings
many times over, but then they usewords like volcanic and sublimate
and there's just such an art tothis man's life and the way that he
used composition to express himself.
And draw out big ideas aboutthe world that he was in.

(08:06):
there's something very compelling there.
There's a lot of raw material.
So like, even if the abrasiveness of whatyou hear on a first listen turns you off
for a minute, there's a big personalityand a tremendously American story.
what a weird moment for America.

(08:26):
I guess what I'm getting at is like,maybe Mingus is one of the most honest

Cliff (08:30):
Yeah,

Kyle (08:32):
figureheads that you could study in a moment like 2025.
And like I, we didn't pick thisrecord with any intention that
it was gonna line up in somesort of political or timely way.
But time and time again, that's whathappens cosmically with these episodes.
So like, I was not a student of Mingusat all and just knew he was like a

(08:52):
capital eye, important jazz dude.
And I wound up being very glad
because I'm feeling a lot ofthose volcanic feelings too.

Cliff (09:02):
you said two really important words that I want to immediately use

Kyle (09:07):
The word is sublimate.

Cliff (09:12):
SUBL.
So.

Kyle (09:14):
Do you Hold on.
Do, do you remember the Bill hater?
No.
Was it Bill Hater?
Will Forte bit on SNL where he islike really bad on the spelling bee
and it's like the word is chicken,C-H-B-Q-S, B-Q-R-Q-Q and it goes on
for a full 90 seconds that he doesthat like a brutally long 90 seconds.

(09:36):
So perhaps also in the spirit of Mingus,you can build your muscle for Mingus with
Will Forte's spelling bees sketch on SNL.
And I mean that as a compliment to both.
the two words that came tomind, sorry for my digression.

Cliff (09:52):
No, it's okay.
'cause I'm gonna further digressquickly and then come back to the point.
It

Kyle (09:57):
Fuck yeah.

Cliff (09:57):
think of the, it makes me think of the conversation 'cause
I'm, I'm always gonna reach out tothe constellation of other art and
entertainment spheres that we might touch.
I'm reminded of the quote in the Avengersmovie where Thor says, never Dele.
And Dr says that word is made up andThor says, all words are made up.

(10:20):
And I think that that is apretty good vibe actually,
for this record in particular.
So then the two words that yousaid, composition and genre.
So first of all, I've given enoughof a caveat at the beginning of this
episode, if you are looking for a jazzeducation, you should not have come here.
But we are gonna do a pretty good jobbecause one thing I have been able to

(10:41):
do in my life that music school helpedme with and I now help other people
with, and I'll accept that Kyle saysthat I've helped him with this too.
You, you, you too canunderstand jazz like.
you got it.
it's okay.
some things are weird onpurpose, other things aren't.
It's a lot like metal or indiemusic or instrumental music.

(11:02):
It has a big spectrum of approachesfrom people who are variously agitated
by being constrained inside of thelabels associated with this thing.
And Charles Mingus was one of those, andhe brilliantly, in a literal sense, like
exploded out from that on this record.
So composition and genre.

(11:23):
Composition one.
Okay.
Most jazz in general, weapproach especially from this
time period by understanding itas a band leading phenomenon.
And I'm also gonna talk a lot onthis and if you agree or disagree,
I'd love to hear this too.
But like, especially the 50 sixtiesand seventies bebop and bebop

(11:48):
adjacent jazz, like this record anda lot of music around it you have
to envision yourself experiencingthis record as a live phenomenon.
It is not a live record, but itis spatial and the composition
and arrangement of this music.
And the reason that there weresix weeks of overdubs done after a

(12:11):
single day of recording to make this.
Is because there is a, a tactilespatial feeling to jazz because
there was a specific way that youexperienced it, especially, in
like, especially in the context ofD Bird who will talk a lot about,
because Charles Mingus idolized them.

(12:33):
And on this record himself said,this is basically him encapsulating
everything he's learned from them inhis whole life up until this moment.

Kyle (12:43):
My living epitaph.

Cliff (12:45):
my living epitaph from birth till the day that I first heard of
Bird and Diz and again, these are,we're only gonna give small vignettes
of very important things to careabout in jazz, but it I really hope
we're gonna illuminate like a bunch ofcorners that make people interested.
So simply talking about Bird andDiz this way is exactly the way that

(13:07):
Miles Davis talked about himself.
Like he did exactly the thing,the same thing that Charles Mingus
did in the sense that CharlieParker, uh, and Dizzy Gillespie
were the figureheads of a movement.
That created the jazz scene in New York.
That was the way that everyone, includingCharles Mingus, conceptualized what

(13:30):
jazz was and what it could become like.
it was a tremendous culturalthing to chase these two people.
And I think we'll probably talk aboutthis some more as well, but like, reason
Bird and Diz were so influential isbecause they took technical proficiency
well beyond the usual, palette thatjazz was providing and pushed speed and

(13:55):
technicality to such a point that, man,this is gonna sound elitist, but like
this, I mean, every word, like theypush complexity and speed to the point
where if you didn't know what they weredoing, it started to sound ridiculous.
And like that's, I think that is a goodlittle vignette for this record too.

(14:16):
when jazz pushes its boundariesto its fringes, you are sometimes
hearing something ridiculous.
But a lot of times you're hearingsomething that you think is ridiculous
'cause you're not patient or smart enoughto understand what's actually happening.
And like.
I'm not saying I do.
I'm saying like, jazz requires you tosit as soon as you notice something

(14:38):
that doesn't connect and it asks youto sit and wait for the thing that's
gonna make it contextual and you like,it's a fundamentally different way to
listen to music, but it's the only wayto get into the headspace of especially
Charles Mingus here, like he is.
I mean one, one quote, uh, that wecollected that I think works well

(15:00):
to explain it here, quote, mostcasual listeners will bristle at the
more challenging segments becausecasual listeners usually prefer
music that suits their expectations.
And this album does nothing of the sort.
It is designed to challenge thelistener and in places it wants you
to feel uncomfortable, and that Ithink is accurate and you need to be

(15:23):
able to hold that statement at thesame time that he says that he made
this record for listening and dancing.
Both of those things are true, and all ofthis was composed together to create that.
And so if you have moments where you'refeeling uncomfortable, which Kyle,
I think you already sort of startedbringing this up and it needs to be a

(15:46):
thing we keep touching on throughoutthis episode, but like, if you notice
yourself sort of feeling anything.
That's awesome.
Someone composed that for you.
this is far less to me a recordof you interpret it and tack on
your experience to the other sideof it and those things combined.
Are you experiencing the record?

(16:06):
That can be true, but here, there is somuch going on with so much specificity
that for the most part you are attunedto what is being done on purpose and
all of the human emotion that's bakedinto this is done with intentionality
and is so, so well executed that themore you listen to it, I think the

(16:27):
more that you will notice yourselfbeing attuned to it over and over.

Kyle (16:30):
So a note on composition or an adjacent note on composition before you
talk about genre, one thing that wasreally helpful for me to contextualize
the importance of composition was youbrought up burden as and the sort of model
for creating records and playing live.
There's a lot of.

(16:51):
3, 4, 5, 6 people doing a thing.
setting a mode andimprovising against that mode.
That's like a band, that's likethe rock and roll e version
of the thing I would say.
So quartet, quintet, sextettype situation, right?
A group of people jamming.
On the other hand, other end of thespectrum, you have big band, which

(17:15):
is literally, it's in the name whereit is a dozen, 15, 18, 20 people
level of an orchestra if you want.
And a lot of that starts to get into moreclassical, where it is highly scripted.
Uh, you're, in the 20th centuryyou're gershwin's and folks like that.

(17:39):
But this sits sort of right in the middle.
It's nine ish people up to11 in some points maybe.
Yeah.
and so it has, you have some ofthe best of the looseness of the
four or five, six person model.
but then, you know, some ofthe structural and composition
elements, the movement type stuff.

(18:00):
So trying to think aboutmyself as a listener.
In the forties, fifties, sixties, and theways you would go experience this music.
when you listen to this music reallyintently, really presently with your
full senses, and you made the excellentsuggestion in the lead up to listen
to this as loud as humanly possible.
And I'd love for you to talk more aboutwhy, but that was when it, like fully,

(18:23):
I could, feel it with all five senses.
Like I could taste the record, Icould hear where people were in
space, which was a phenomenal creditto Bob Thiel and the production.
But where listening to a lot of jazzrecords, maybe not a Love Supreme, but
you know like certainly all the cool jazzstuff that got me into jazz feels like you
go to a tight little intimate space andyou just listen to people do their thing.

(18:49):
This felt more like going to amovie or going to the theater and
seeing a visual thing happening.
And this is more like a soundtrackaccompaniment, like going to Broadway or
seeing a ballet is not really my thing,so that's not what it evoked for me.
if that is your thing, great.
Hopefully immediately thetextures will bring out movement,

(19:11):
dance oriented visuals for you.
But for me it felt a lot likegoing to see a great film.
And it wasn't until I turned it up reallyloud that I started like literally having
visual hallucinations from this music.
And it was like a revelation.
I was driving the back roads in thecountry and playing this music really

(19:31):
loud first thing in the morning andit was like, holy shit, I get it now.
Oh my God.
And there was no context in which itworked on that level for me before that.
But now it's made every, every listensince then subsequently much easier.
You know, like when you're 18and everybody's like, bourbon's
in acquired taste and then youwake up and you're almost 40 and

(19:51):
you're like, oh, I love it now.
But there was a time when I really didn'tgetting into music like this, it just
reminded me that getting into music likethis or having a moment with albums like
this is like a 10 year overnight success.
I don't wanna discount the appetite fordissonance that you and I have built up.
And even with that, expecting it on somelevel, it still took a not what I was

(20:13):
thinking I should do with jazz moment tobreak through to the other side with it.

Cliff (20:18):
Yep.
Didn't expect me to suggest that youtreat it like a Matt Pike record instead,
and see what comes out the other side.
So that, man, that's great.
I'm glad you brought that up.
So I would definitely, first ofall, suggest that to anyone and
everyone, listen to this record inparticular, I'm talking about as
loud as you can possibly take it.
I am suggesting it is at thevery edge of comfortability,

Kyle (20:39):
Yeah, not, jazz.
Loud, regular, loud.
Yeah.

Cliff (20:42):
you, so actually this is a, this is a great prompt for anybody.
Uh, we are slowly learning that thereare, in fact human beings on earth who
are influenced by our conversations here.
So I'm gonna try for another one.
Now, if you've never been to an actualweird jazz show of any type, I, I mean
almost any jazz, but I need you to go alittle bit in the kind of weird direction.

(21:03):
Don't pick, uh, band whogot hired to play an event.
That's not what I mean.
Okay.
But, uh, and you can do the same thingwith classical music actually, too.
It's a fundamentally different experiencewhen you go and someone is intending
to play that type of music for you.
So similarly, if you go see jazz, andif you would've seen it back then.
For a record like this, or forCharles Mingus or Disen Bird, what it

(21:27):
would've been ear, piercingly loud.
And you would've been in a very smallroom where even in the best of acoustic
situations, you have, like you mentioned,anywhere between five and now 12 people
maybe on stage doing a variety of things.
Some of whom have very high-pitchedinstruments that can play very loud,

(21:47):
that are not being amplified, whichmeans they're shooting directly
into your face at kind of eye level.
So like, I think that that opens up asense of the space of what was being
done because not only is this, likelistening to it loud is gonna open up
all the details and room sound of whatwas recorded and not overdubbed out,

(22:11):
uh, which is gonna give you not onlya, a sense of like where people are,
but it's also I think, gonna help.
Help you to discern and start to listento why Rhythm is different on Charles
Mingus records and specifically onthis one, and I'll talk a little bit
more about that too, but like listeningto it loud is gonna draw that out

(22:31):
because it's going to put us back ina headspace that people were in when
this record was written, but that wedon't experience the same way anymore.
concerts are fundamentally different.
We have gone all the way throughLoudness wars and come on the other
side of guitarists hardly playon-stage amps anymore type stuff.
for better or worse.

(22:52):
And I really mean that we've evolvedthe way that we experience concerts
and the type of loudness that weexperience is usually not the same
type that is gonna draw out whatwas being composed here on purpose.
like a modern equivalent of this wouldbe if like Brian Eno made an Adobe Atmos
record and was like, you have to listento it this way or it won't make sense.

(23:17):
I think that's the type of thing wherewe're, you know, we're in 2025 in the
future in order to understand thingsbetter contextually, we have to figure
out how to put ourselves physically in theenvironment that people were in for this.
and so I hope that that doesn't soundoverly like smoke blowy, but like I.
Something about hearing jazz played bya quartet, a quintet, whatever that's

(23:42):
shoved onto a really small stage andit's at such a loud volume, and then
you can feel the physicality of itand you can feel how they're talking
to each other and you can see it inthe interplay and everything like it.
It starts to change the way you listento the music, and I think that that
is a really important aspect of likeunfurling, what's being done here.

Kyle (24:02):
I totally agree.
I would say.
If you want to try to get close toexperiencing the live context, I'll
make another plug for Big Ears.
There's always a thing happening at1130 at night that like we saw Collin
Stetson playing crazy saxophoneshit in a totally pitch black
room that felt a bit like Mingus.

(24:26):
We saw, water damage, do like a loud,long motoric thing late at night.
my understanding is long play festivalin Brooklyn does some of that.
I think there's a handful ofseek out a fringe fest near you.
I wanna say Denver probablyhas a couple that I've seen.

(24:47):
I don't know that they're quite inthis realm, but like, it's the kind of
thing, especially if you're looking tolevel up, as a music person traveling,
they're certainly on the coast.
There's probably a few inthe middle of the country.
Austin, Denver, is Montrose still going?
Montrose is probably another goodplace to try to try to do the thing.
It's way eclectic, but I bet you couldsee some good stuff like this as well.

(25:11):
But yeah, I like seekingout a fringe fest near you.
Find your freakiest head that you know.
The person who listens to weird andoff-putting stuff and they, they will
know a cool outta the way spot to getblasted at eye level by un-muted horns.

Cliff (25:29):
you said something a minute ago.
I also wanted to use as a bit of anon-ramp to things here, which was
sort of setting up the way that,uh, I think traditionally jazz.
Bands or groups are creating a motif,playing a particular thing, doing
something as a backdrop for a particularmember of the band to improvise over

(25:53):
whatever, pretty common approach to jazz.
Definitely a built in part ofhow we understand jazz, even if
we're not doing it consciously.
Like if you listen to itenough, you're gonna start to
discern that pattern either way.
So that had become and was a veryimportant template that then informed

(26:13):
the way that musicians instrumentssounded, where they fit inside of
a jazz composition, all of that.
And so we have a, a kind of like aswirl of things happening at this
particular time in history whereCharles Mingus starts intentionally,

(26:34):
basically fucking with that idea.
actually I don't want to do that.
and.
He had, we'll talk about the liner notes.
Some he made very clear his visceraldistaste for effectively, hey, US
music critics like, but specificallylike the, the people who he viewed as

(26:55):
basically making money, doing nothingof value simply by putting words on
music and not spending enough timeactually understanding what they meant.
Therefore, creating a commodificationof the entire music listening experience
that was diminishing the experiences thatpeople could actually have with something
that was good and composed properly.
And like he was reaching likea fever pitch of frustration

(27:18):
with this specifically.
so, even down to the fact thaton this record in particular, he
chose to say, this is not jazz.
And if you make me pick words for it,I'll say it's ethnic folk dance music.
Which okay, actually, just puttingdifferent words on this record as a filter

(27:40):
to try to see what makes sense and doesn'tis a pretty cool way to experience it.
And those words will help draw out someaspects that you've probably not noticed.
but in that larger sense of like.
Not wanting to just create a palettefor each other to improvise on top of,
this was one of the most intentionallycomposed jazz anythings ever up until

(28:07):
this point, which is part of whatmakes it specifically not only unique,
but why it's so lauded in history.
And it's also not one of them, you know,we cover records sometimes where it's
like, people didn't really give a shitabout this, and then eventually they
went, Hmm, that was pretty important.
This one was clear from the jump.

Kyle (28:24):
Mm-hmm.

Cliff (28:26):
Everyone was pretty in on it, including Charles Mingus,
who himself said about this one.
I feel no need to explain any furtherthe music herewith other than to
say, throw out all other recordsof mine, except maybe one other
one, which I'm gonna guess, uh, ifhistory is right, is Mingus, uh, um,
which is a good record that youcould and should go back to if

(28:49):
you can, like anything here.
but he did something new andintentional and different.
And so the composition not only isn'ta palate for improvisation, uh, but on
the other hand went all the way to theother side of the possible pendulum.
there were a few details that Ithink really draw out how this
music was created to begin with.
First of all, we mentionedit was recorded in one day,

Kyle (29:12):
January 20th, 1963.

Cliff (29:15):
So one day of recording and then about a six week residency to compose
the record from what had been recorded,which then began to bring in lots of
overdubbing and other techniques likethat, which it's not like it was the
first time it was done in jazz, butthe, front loaded, we're gonna record

(29:37):
this whole thing, and then I'm gonnasort of compose the thing out of it.
Over time, was, drastic and intentionaland noticeable, but also when it came
to what they recorded on that day, thefact that it was intentionally composed
like that is easily lost on you becausealmost always Charles Mingus was writing

(30:02):
all, I mean, he even wrote like theclassical guitar solos on the piano.
Like he knew everything he was doing,and yet he did not write notation.
He would instead just sing or playon the bass, the thing that he had
written to another musician who wouldgo, yep, okay, who could then play it?

(30:23):
Which I don't know if you've ever playedan instrument before, but that's fucking
crazy Oh, like we talk a lot about theechelon of musicians and the, like,
studio musicians on some of these records.
And that is, that is a level thatis difficult to get to in life.
But that they managed to do here.

Kyle (30:43):
And interestingly, multiple sources emphasized how he wrote to the style
and the strengths of those players.
So he didn't notate like a classicalcomposition so that anyone technically
competent could come in and do it.
He created space forother voice to come in.

(31:04):
Like he, he was pretty didactic,but with other people in mind.
And to me there's a level of geniusin that, of like seeing others
and morphing a vision in your headto what you think they can do.
But like singing it to them, there's anintuition there and a one in one makes

(31:26):
three thing that that starts to get at thelevel of, just beyond technical prowess
that makes Charles Mingus really special.

Cliff (31:36):
And to add one more dimension onto this that I also think is great,
everything's building everythingwe talked about is, is a Lego
piece in a very cool, I don't know.
Star Wars set or some shit, I don't know.
But like all of this stuff is important.
It's interrelated andit like plays on itself.
And the last thing, well one of, oneof the things last thing in this little

(31:58):
diatribe, I guess that I wanna point outthat will give you, again, a really quick
on-ramp to discerning what's happeninghere and beginning to appreciate it.
So think of the jazz greats that youcan think of off the top of your head.
Doesn't matter how experienced youare in it, just, pull some names.
Right.
Almost certainly those people playedhorns, maybe they played piano.

(32:20):
Charles Mingus, although he was anexcellent piano player, primarily was
a bass player and he was playing theinstrument of bass, which itself had
the name of double bass because itso commonly was just used to repeat
something else that someone else wasdoing, or to repeat something that
someone else was playing at a loweroctave, like it was called double base

(32:43):
because it was just doubling the baseline.
It's like when you're in a high schoolband and you can't find a bass, so you
find somebody who like knows how to playquarter notes, and can stand up there
until you can find a better bass player.
That is sort of how this instrumentwas used for the most part.
Charles Mingus himself was notonly an expert of it, but once
again was the same ornery personthat we've talked about so far.

(33:06):
So he was not content to use itthe same way that other people did.
So one of the quickest and easiest ways Ithink to immediately start deconstructing
this album in particular is by listeningspecifically to the double base.
Because even on the very first track,he immediately changes the way that
it's used from a traditional sense ofkeeping an underlying rhythmic melody.

(33:31):
And he starts playing that thing.
Like it's sometimes he playsit like it's a kick drum.
Sometimes it's like an 8 0 8,sometimes it's an upright jazz bass.
Sometimes it's more like an electric bass.
he is doing phenomenally differentthings all throughout the record.
And then that informs the way that he willcompose everyone else in relation to him.

Kyle (33:51):
Yeah, I did make notes that sometimes it's like a rhythm instrument.
it's not a melodic thing, whichI thought was interesting.
First of all, it's crazy that theband leader is playing a normally
pretty invisible instrument.
He's in a class apart for that.
And so very well articulated point.
he plays counter to the melody a good bit.

(34:12):
I know we're gonna get intocold listen stuff in a second,
but there's so much tension.
Like, one of the first things you noticeis tension between parts of the ensemble
with other parts of the ensemble.
It's very pronounced, and you'llhear it in the very first track.
It's the first thing thatgrabs you, I would think.
but then the third thing is like,he can really play the shit, for all

(34:35):
the moments that you don't noticewhat's happening with the bass because
there's so much other stuff going on.
Most of the time when you do noticeit, it's like, oh, he cooking.
the first moment.
Where it really stood out from atechnical standpoint was track C.
And that one's probably my favorite.

(34:55):
Like I, I think the, the medley,the fourth track will give you
the best flavor of everything.
And you need the, the stuff established inthe first three tracks to really get the
full flavor of the medley, which bringsit all together in, in a filmic way.
But track CI love because it drops intothe flamenco part, like at three and a
half minutes or so, the drums speed upinto like a full blown D beat thing, which

(35:21):
is just like a rhythm pattern that I love.
And I think I'm always attuned to look foreverywhere in the world, and was surprised
to see it on a Charles Mingus record.
so that is kind of sick.
It's either like, uh, D beat or like thelive version of Backdoor Love Affair on
ZZ Tops Fano, which is also a DB of sorts.
So there's a nice littleholy trinity for you.

(35:44):
but like right after that, around thefour minute mark, when the rhythm gets
up to a Gallup, he's like, really picking
and it's crisp.
Every moment is crisp.
And I didn't, it was the loud,listen, that really got me so.
It doesn't have to be the first track,but like, there's probably going to

(36:05):
be one movement of this where the loudstuff, the detail work really grabs you.
And for me it was track C andthat base moment is like, wow.
Damn, this guy can, he can do it all.
it's all in his head.
I talk about he is legend as much asyou talk about Zeppelin, just like the,
you know, the reference point that keepson giving to your musical identity.

(36:25):
And I remember reading on MySpace,I'm showing my age, when they
were recording it Hates you.
They were like, we leftto go get chicken wings.
And we came back and AdamTanbus had recorded like 40
layers of guitar for a song.
And we don't know how a whole worldof sounds not only lives in one man's
head, but stack up all together.

(36:46):
And I kept thinking about that,listening to Mingus, all this shit
was in his head, including as Bob Tealmentioned in an interview, all the cuts.
So they had this recording and he heardall this other stuff on top of it that
he then went and drew out with overdub.
So appreciate it for the ensemble stuffbut I, I think it's really fitting that

(37:09):
it came from a bassist by trade becausebase is really the glue of so much.
Modern music, right?
It starts from the low endand it builds its way up.
So like he's so connected, he'sso attuned to the base layer of
information with all this, andthen he builds it all in his head.
From there, again, I thinkhe's just really fascinating,

(37:31):
psychologically as a person.
and so thinking about thecomplexity of it all coming from
his head is really interesting.
But it does start with the base.

Cliff (37:39):
So maybe going straight to a cold listen technique and then we
will hit another up ramp of oh, bythe way, here are all the critical
accolade reasons you should believe us.
Uh, I think might be acool little one two punch.
'cause actually I just, once again,challenging invisible people listening
to this podcast in the future.

(38:01):
this is a very good record where if you,as a person, you want to be a good music
listener and what we might otherwisecall a critic or whatever, someone
who like can put on music and findsomething to appreciate in every moment.
This is a very, very, verygood test of your skills.

(38:22):
And what I mean by that as well isthere's no pass fail in the test.
The only way you can fail is byputting it on at quarter volume in the
background and then doing somethingelse that will not work for this one.
It won't sound bad, but it'snot gonna work for this one.
You're not like, you're notgonna get that out of it.

(38:43):
It's not trying to do that for you.
And I think.
Again, in a moment we'll talksome more specifically, not only
about the accolades, but about thecomposition of the composition because
there's a reason it calls to minddance and movement and all that.
but before we do, I think once again, liketrying as much as you can, especially if
you are in the somewhat enviable positionof listening to this in this moment and

(39:07):
not knowing a ton about the record, justgo blind and try as hard as you can to
listen to it loud and just let it come atyou and let things sort of arise because
there's so much coming and going thatfirst of all, it's not, it's not too
complicated for you to understand either.

(39:27):
It may be abrasive in places andit is complex compositionally.
Yes.
And it has like pretty wild timesignatures and all that stuff is
true, but it is an understandable,comprehensible record for the most part.
and it's definitely got sections thatdraw you back in, and then it'll give
you a sort of groove and give youa vibe and a feeling and all that.

(39:49):
So it's just like we alwaysencourage people to try to use the
albums we're talking about as away to get better at loving music.
But this one is sort of an,an unusual like, I don't know.
Walking around in your RPG and you findsomething that restores like all the HP

(40:09):
for you and everyone in your group allat once, and it's like a magical thing.
And then you can sort of dosome alchemy and then it like
heals everybody's everything.
this is sort of one of those, it's likea magical mushroom that you can choose to
take and it'll just like objectively makeyou better at understanding this stuff.
and we don't have a lot ofrecords like that in our history.
Would you agree?

Kyle (40:30):
Certainly not in the history of this podcast.

Cliff (40:34):
Well, fair point.
But I, I guess I'd also say tothat like it's, it is hard to just
like walk up to jazz and be like,show me your important records.
o okay, but like, what do you mean?
Like from what perspective?
Because we, you know, we've mentioned,I don't know if we've said it directly,
but sort of like a trinity of jazzrecords we've talked about now.

(40:55):
is this one and BitchesBrew and Love Supreme,

Kyle (41:00):
Yeah,

Cliff (41:01):
those might fit on a list of important jazz records.
You should be listeningto all capital letters.
But like, it's also not gonnateach you everything about jazz.
it's it's only gonna teachyou about those specific

Kyle (41:14):
yeah.
That Trent, I mean, one of the greatthings about jazz is so many of these
records are worlds unto themselves and arethe best evidence for your longstanding
thesis on this podcast that we justneed a lot fewer words set to music.
the more jazz we cover, themore I tend to see things.

(41:34):
Your, the more non jazz we cover, themore I tend to see things your way as
we're getting older on, frankly, uh,as we see words fail again and again.
but I mean to say that you'vebarely touched a grain of ice.
On an iceberg on the tip ofthe iceberg with those three
records is an understatement.
and yet those things are entireicebergs unto themselves.

(41:57):
So it's a, it's a bit of a cosmicfractal with jazz where it, it'll zoom
in and out with your consciousness.
And so now I've, now that I've spiraledinto a bunch of headiness with that,
I do think what you're getting at withthe magic mushroom thing, the, like
Mario power up and what either kindof mushrooms, um, the real world kind
or the Mario kind, is like, I rememberthe first time you told me to listen

(42:21):
to Alaska by between the buried and me.
immediately I was like, I am smarter.
I feel my, it felt like the limitlessdrug the first time Bradley Cooper
took the limitless drug where itwas just like, I feel more of my
brain working now immediately.
I will never be the same person again.
and a good jazz recordwill do that every time.

(42:41):
And I think this is, this is one of 'em.
So getting into the cold, listen,for me, the thing I alluded to is the
tension, the drag of the tuba and of thebase against the horns almost playing
an entirely different thing, likecertainly operating at a different speed.
You're like, hold on.
But it's so perfectly in sync that youcan't even get to the level of are they

(43:05):
doing a bit, are they fucking with me?
it's tight.
And that's one of the ways that itfeels like a composition, like a movie
score or something in the theater.
it accompanies the scene becauseit's all, it's all in rhythm,
but it has like a, like two cellspulling apart type of tension.
They're still very much part of the sameorganism, but you can see them starting

(43:29):
to, starting to divide some, and ithas a very organic quality in that way.
and it's also the first, youknow, the, wow, wow, wow.
Is the first Musical idea that'sintroduced to you, that is a
voice or a character or a modeof expression or, or whatever.

(43:49):
If you're trying to envisionthe, the ballet or the story
of this thing that then getsreintroduced in the medley later.
in an equal but opposite way fromBrooks and Dunn where we lauded the
thing opening with the chorus, youdo get a musical idea right after
the first bit of the drumbeat intro.
That's also different than a love Supreme.

(44:11):
You know, like you, you drop into alove supreme with a dun, dun dun dun.
that's a mode that theyplay off of the whole time.
Whereas this is more of a likecheckoffs gun thing where we're
gonna introduce the thing, we'regonna mutate it a whole bunch.
It'll go away entirely.
We're gonna introduce two more things thatare nothing like this, and then we will,

(44:33):
we'll bring it back in and sew it togetherwith the other things in a way that you,
you know, to use that quote from earlier.
You can't see the seams.
What else would your cold, listen?
you know, what was likeone of your first Oh wow.
Moments or a thing that you're like,I want to, the first thing that
made you take a note in your phone.
Or,

Cliff (44:53):
Yep.
Oh man.
First of all, thank you once againfor making the connection between this
record and between the Berry Deese,Alaska, so I didn't have to do it.
Thank you so much.

Kyle (45:05):
I, I jumped you on Zeppelin.
I just continuing the streakof Zeppelin mentions probably
can make one here as well.
And then, and then bt bam.
And then I got one.
When we get to, where do you go from here?
Later.
I got another one for you thatyou're gonna be like, oh shit.
Guaranteed.

Cliff (45:22):
that section of this podcast is gonna be very good.
I feel that in my bones.
I'm excited for that.
But yes, I'm glad that you mentionedthat and just impressing on it like that
is often a record that I use to explainto other people what you described,
but I can never say it that way, whichis, here is music that's gonna make
you feel smart if you'll just hangin there for a minute, because you

(45:45):
are, it is, like you described, likeit's putting puzzle pieces together.
If you just sit there andlisten 45 seconds later, you're
gonna go, oh, I remember that.
I feel smart for remembering that

Kyle (45:55):
But I wanna, I really want to stress that it's different than a record where
you're trying to feel smart, like gettinginto classical and putting on glasses
and sitting at Starbucks or whatever.
It's like it works on a biologicallevel where you're just like, oh, Uhhuh.
Like, it, it makes the cellsin your brain do sparking.

(46:17):
It's, it's got divine spark in it,so you don't have to try to get it.
It's just going to dosomething even if you hate it.

Cliff (46:25):
Right?
Yes.
This is not an Igor record.
This is smart because it is very smart.
It's not just abrasive asan exercise on its own.
Then to this point of, uh, what's thefirst thing that made me take a note?
Well, I started taking notes immediatelywhen I gave myself permission to take
notes on this record because the veryfirst thing I noticed to connect back to

(46:47):
what we were talking about with the, thedouble base is how, so similar to a Love
Supreme sort of like you mentioned, right?
You actually get a littlebase intro in a riff.
It doesn't get repeated a bunch,but you get the little base intro.
But then what I noticed is what Ithought was a tuba and now understand
to be a contra base, trombone is doingthese like blah blah, it's doing this

(47:13):
like wild like rhythmic type thing.
That first of all, again, we're gonnakeep repeating this, like it comes out
very directly if you were listeningloud and on decent speakers, like you
need to hear it so that you can hear thetexture of some of these instruments.
But like immediately I noticed like, hey,look, the double bass is actually hinting

(47:36):
at things that are coming later and notdriving the rhythm of the music at all.
Instead, they're playing theseatonal notes from ri, from melodic
instruments to make the rhythm.
Like you are immediately sort ofcaught off guard with the whole thing.
you do not know what role everyoneis going to play as you go along, and

(47:58):
you've only been introduced at thatpoint to three instruments out of.
You know, 11 potentially.
So it immediately like got mybrain thinking about things
to notice, which is cool.
And not everybody has toexperience 'em that way.
But for me, like I was veryexcited to even try to give
this another fresh listen.

(48:19):
'Cause like I mentioned, I was inmusic school at some point I had to
listen to this and pretend I knew thatI understood what was going on inside
of it as a 19-year-old or whatever.
But like now as an adult who has a littlebit more humility and is willing to be
like, vulnerable with music, it was areally exciting experience, to be honest.

Kyle (48:37):
Also, I just Googled Google image search contra base trombone,
oh, it's a trombone for giants.
so that does, it can immediately peakyour childlike curiosity to that point.
'cause you're like, oh, whatother type of freak shit are
we about to get into on this?

Cliff (48:55):
And then the other, speaking of what freak shit are we about to get
into, here's another thing I noticed,but I am worried that it's an effectively
like a listening spoiler for people.
So if you want, you can skip this,but like there's like Dilla stuff
going on here, Different instrumentsstart dragging the beat in different

(49:16):
places and they will change thetempo and slow down and speed up.
And so instead of it just beingone move inside of a consistent
tempo, they're actually playing withboth of those things at all times.
And it really creates like a dolly senseof like, time is moving in different

(49:37):
directions and at different rates atthe same time somehow type of deal.
Which again, I think is part of whatbrings it back to it feeling so spatial.
'Cause like you, you can actually startto discern sections that are moving
together, in sync versus other areas.
And like that doesn't, what I justsaid doesn't make sense musically.

(49:59):
So you have to listen toit to like feel that out.

Kyle (50:02):
yeah.
I made notes about specificinstances of tempo change, but I
didn't think about what a centralfeature of this work that is.
and again, credit to the playersOn this record and Ming's sense of.
Control over the proceedings that liketempo and rhythm wise, it's tight,

(50:23):
it's played tight, but it comes outloose Time is really stretchy on
this record and primed by a coupleof my favorite things to like that.
Like the horn work reminds me of theending of two queens of the Stone Age
records that end with horn freakoutslike we've talked about, rated R, which

(50:48):
ends with a super free jazz horn thing.
but they also do a move on the medley thatI like when hardcore metal bands do it.
And that's the speed up into oblivion,like speed up till it falls apart
thing the opposite of the chariot.
there's that trap them song that let leteach and every fall, whatever, dah, dah,

(51:13):
dah, that's a rework of a very early trapthem song and it goes faster and faster
until it can't sustain and it falls apart.
but what's very cool on thisrecord and other than the D beat
thing is probably my favoritething that happens on this record.
They speed up and they get.

(51:33):
Right up about to the tempowhere you wonder if they're
gonna take it all the way or not.
they take it 20% more than you'd thinkthey would to make it exciting, but
they don't take it all the way, whichwould make it a little too freaky.
Like they retain a like gentleman'selegance on the whole proceeding, right?
There's enough sophistication to like, letyou know they're in control at all times.

(51:58):
But the speedups give way intolike a very sultry nightclub big
band thing, a big syrupy groove.
that is a, like, other people cando it, can do this thing, but they,
one, you know, they can't writea blues groove quite this rad.

(52:23):
And two, they can't put it in thecontext of all these other moves,
just showing you what they're made of.
And that's, that's a very cool thing.
They do it at least twice on the medley.
and it's really, really enjoyable.
it's like a big wave breaking and it'sgot a very organic quality in that way.

Cliff (52:41):
I love the visual comparisons.
Keep 'em coming.
I feel like it's the only wayto talk about anything here.
It all needs some sort of tangiblething we can imbue with how we are
feeling about the music stuff 'causeit's so cool and so hard to describe.

Kyle (52:58):
I will say like, I'm glad we waited until after Alain Goraguer and after
Ennio Morricone to talk about this.
I'm glad Mingus wasn't our firstcomposer that we tried to tackle.
'cause I don't think I would'vehad as much of a sense of how
to digest what was going on.
but looking at it through the lensof, film folks, I think really helps.

(53:20):
And, I don't get the impression thatMingus would've cared one way or
another, you know, if that broughthis stock up or down in people's eyes.
But it would've been verycool to see him compose film.
Like certainly if he was gonna doballet and he was around until 79,
so like he very well could have.
but yeah, I just, I reiteratethat that's a helpful context if
you're into very visual things.

(53:42):
This is very visual musicand it almost doesn't.
Work as well without trying to visualize,

Cliff (53:49):
Yes,

Kyle (53:49):
as a writer by trade in my life, trying to ascribe a written narrative,
like using the subtitles and trying toinform what are the words that you would
say about what he's trying to communicate.
If there were some speech about thisor some short story or whatever,
that didn't work for me at all,and in fact frustrated me a bit.

(54:12):
But then just having like visualmontages coming in and out, kind of
like a dream enabled by the high volume.
Listen, like you really need to lookfor pictures instead of words, and
it's very impressionistic in that way.
So don't try to get too locked intolike, what is the metaphor here?
What's he saying?
what's this about?

(54:33):
What's he trying to do?
You know, like it's one of those like,stop trying to surf and just surf things.
So thank you for callingattention to that.
It really is like vi visuals are theway to go in terms of trying to unlock
what you think is happening here.

Cliff (54:47):
Yes, I'm glad you went ahead and, and brought that up.
I think that's an excellent sort ofcounterpoint to keep in mind for a cold.
Listen we'll talk more about this in asecond, but just for instance so there
are technically four tracks on thisrecord that was a record labeled decision.
There are six movements on thisalbum, with three of them being

(55:09):
collected in that last track.
But each of those movementshave a very particular and
like visceral subtitle to them.
Like the first one is Stop lookand listen Center, Jim Whitney.
So that immediately hits you as like,there is something very specific going
on here, but that is maybe the ruse

(55:30):
the, there, there is noaccompanying novel to this album.
there's not a

Kyle (55:37):
the internet screenplay.
Yeah.

Cliff (55:39):
right?
Yeah.
And so what we get to accept insteadis that is the level of specificity of
the mental mood board of Charles Mingusand his 10 fellow people while they
were doing this thing where he intendedto reverse engineer the feelings that

(55:59):
he wanted you to have when thinkingabout the thing he had in mind.
As described by that subtitle, like,just go there and as much as you can,
if you wanna read the subtitle, great.
You can get a little bit of context, butlike, if you go too far into thinking
this is literally a story, a movie,something like that, you've, you've

(56:21):
actually gone too far because likewe will sort of talk about like, this
has much more in common with, firstof all, classical music and second
of all ballet than it does most otherforms of entertainment or art at all.
Both of those are things which havehistorically and traditionally used
music to tell stories, but neverspecific stories, stories that you can

(56:46):
discern only through movement and music.
I'm hoping this doesn't sound likewe're sort of like being a dead horse,
but like I think that that is a mentalcontext that we are never in anymore.
Our visuals drive everything that, sowe're, all the way down to just it's
2025 right now, TikTok in general isjust still the thing that is getting.

(57:12):
A lot of people and including a lotof kids, and like, it's just, it is
your eyeballs on a visual thing andthe audio is going along with it.
Yes.
And we can use audio in creative ways, andit's not all bad, but like your experience
is so visually constrained and constrictedand contextualized now, whereas in this

(57:33):
situation, we are, needing to assume theposition of non-specific visuals that we
can in fact create with our own brains,just like Kyle is doing because that's
what Charles Mingus was doing and whatthis music is supposed to do for you.
But like, it's just a thingthat we don't do anymore.
It's not even like meditation,which I would argue like a Love

(57:56):
Supreme can be used for you.
Just turn that shit on in a mediumvolume and sit down and be quiet
and like listen to yourself breathe.
That does pretty well.
But that's because that music waswritten as prayer and hymn it does that.
That's what Coltrane wanted to do.
This thing is not doing that atall, and if you try to do it that
way, it's not gonna feel good.

Kyle (58:17):
Yeah, love, everything you just said, it reminds me of two things.
the love Supreme black Saint.
Schism thinking of him as a yin and yang,which I think can be interesting to do.
Reminds me of when we did T Dig radioin 2020 and we had the two playlists
for reflection and direct action.
I think you can think of these,is mapping to those two modes.

(58:39):
I love Supreme is for reflection andprayer and hymn and sort of circular
or inward type of thought or feeling.
Whereas Black Saint is movement.
it's action, it's connection orcollision course even with the
outside world, you know, it isGroup and solo dance, so to speak.

(59:02):
and then the other thing came to mindwhen you were talking is it reminds me
of the argument or warning or whateverfrom when we were growing up of like,
always read the book, not the movie,like do the book before the movie,
at least because the movie is goingto imbue a certain set of visuals.

(59:23):
It's gonna make the world feel a veryspecific and prescribed way to you.
But if you read the book, the world canbe kind of whatever you want it to be.
And that feels like less ofan ideological divide now.
' cause people have other frontiersof visuals to worry about.
And as we know, literacy andreadership are down quite considerably.

(59:48):
but growing up in the world ofbook it, this is actually like a
pretty staunch ideological argument.
and so I think if you're, of ageto have grown up in that world,
this is like, we're telling you,it's not the movie where it's
going to prescribe visuals to you.
It's going to tell you what the world is.
This is a book where you imagine the worldin your head a little and fill in details.

(01:00:14):
And so then like something like,because the internet becomes
an interesting example becausethat thing is sort of both.
And that could go down a whole rabbithole about how that's the really
obnoxious thing about Donald Glover,how he wants it to be very prescriptive
and also open-ended when there's gaps.
It's this way.
If you see it one way and it's theother way, if you see it another way

(01:00:36):
and like, don't ask me any questionsabout it 'cause it's all right.
Mingus is like full blown open.
but it's good that way because itshould be provoking conversation.
It should be leading youto other sources that.
You know, has lead you to, in terms oflike books and plays and, and whatever,
like the openness of a level ofexpression that's this sort of volcanic,

(01:01:01):
to use that word again, should leadyou to books and movies and whatever.
Like you should have a mixed mediaplaylist, so to speak, that comes
out of this, not just more albums.

Cliff (01:01:12):
Damn.
That's a real good prompt.
That's got me thinking.
I'm gonna keep thinking so.
Let's, then, if you're cool with it,let's go back now and layer in here are
objective ish reasons why this recordis both important and very interesting.
'cause I, I pseudo intentionallysaved some of this because I actually

(01:01:36):
like the idea of trying to piqueyour interest in this before we just
repeat over and over again to you.
That every other jazz musician inhistory has been like, this is one of
the most important records that's everhappened, from one of the most important
people who have ever played jazz.
considered in terms of usingthe word composition, probably

(01:01:57):
considered the most importantjazz composition that was created.
this is a fun connection.
Speaking of, uh, we're gonna, we're gonnacoast the wave of your mention of Donald
Glover now, which was all very good.
and we're gonna connect this aswell to something he will never
get, which is five mics from source.

(01:02:18):
this record got the equivalentof that from the Penguin Guide
to Jazz, which is a crown token.
Like that is their version of like.
Undeniable.
Five out of five.
This is the best we know that you'regonna come for us when we say this,
and we're still saying it anyway.
This is very, very important.

(01:02:39):
And so it got that, the Crown Token, andthey do a four out of four star rating.
And it got that like it is amongthe most acclaimed jazz records
period of the 20th century.
It is in, rolling Stone'sjazz record guide.
It is in everything.
And almost everyone is gonna startpointing you at this especially

(01:02:59):
after you hit a few highlights,which we've already mentioned, which
are things like Coltrane and MilesDavis, like you are right here, bud.
It's this, it's his idols, CharlieParker and Dizzy Gillespie, right?
It's it's a handful of otherpeople, Thelonious Monk, like a
real sort of a-list of all of jazz.
Charles Mingus is sitting inthis, and this was more or less

(01:03:23):
the most important thing he everdid, even by his own testament.
and therefore, anytime as an overallrule that we exercise in all genres, if
important people in music are tellingyou that a thing is important, you
should at least try to understand whatthey're talking about because that
will in fact make you smarter even ifyou don't understand it to begin with.

(01:03:47):
And this is definitely one of those.
And I think then connecting that with.
which we already mentioned.
Just again, contextualizingtime-wise, like we mentioned, this
was recorded in on January 20th, 1963.
So especially if you're thinkingthrough sort of jazz history,
you can contextualize that year.

(01:04:08):
but going then further into this, I thinkwe have almost intentionally sandbagged
Charles MGA's intellect when it comesto his composition here, because you
can't just talk about everything at once.
So we're gonna go further now.
So we mentioned that there weresix movements in this record.
So this is a ballet, it is written as aballet is composed that way, and therefore

(01:04:36):
you're going to get, you know, and thiswill make varying amount of senses sense
to you depending on your exposure tosort of classical music or even just
high art, so to speak, in that sense.
but.
classical music and ballet havea lot of crossover to begin with
because they are effectively,again, wordlessly telling stories.

(01:04:56):
Ballet is usually sitting on topof classical music as a way to
shape the music so that dancecan interpret what's being done.
Right.
And like this is all fairly obvious,but we have to reverse engineer where
this record came from because it's notjust, I've been playing jazz for 15
years and this is what we came up with.
This is Charles Mingus saying, I notonly don't want to do jazz and don't

(01:05:20):
want you to call me jazz at all, but Iam like, just try to like envision and
think of him saying it at this time whenjazz is not only blossoming and in a
sense, a rising tide for black America.
It is at the same time becomingaccording to Charles Mingus, and

(01:05:42):
I'm sure other people at that time,jazz, was then becoming, oh, this
is the bucket that you put us in.

Kyle (01:05:48):
Mm-hmm.

Cliff (01:05:48):
is what you call what we do.
I don't wanna do that.
I'm not doing that.
Don't call it that.
I hate the people who try to call it that.
And I'm going to be clear with youthat I'm writing a ballet for you
to dance to and listen to you like.
Everything here was done with a levelof specificity and like eye into the

(01:06:11):
camera intentionality that really likedemands your attention when you listen.
And so that plays out here by notonly now knowing that it's ballet and
understanding why it feels so physical.
but like now you also understandwhat he means when he says he wrote
this for you to dance to literallyhe wrote this for you to dance to.

(01:06:34):
and then you can start to then applythat to how you listen to the record.
And you'll not only hear that I thinkas you listen to the first three
tracks, but then in that fourth trackyou should be able to discern the
three individual movements within it.
and if you listen for it, you will.
And Kyle said, you'll feelsmarter when you listen.

(01:06:55):
And that is one of the 100 ways thatyou're gonna feel smarter when you listen,
is now you're gonna listen to that track.
And even if you sort of get it wrongthe first time, you'll learn how,
like, how and why you got it wrong.
And you'll now know somethingabout classical music that
you didn't know before.
we talk about Rosetta Stones alot because it's a really good
metaphor for good records, but like.

(01:07:16):
Maybe more than almost anyonewe've used before this one.
It just, if you just like set iton your head for a minute and take
some deep breaths, you like becomemore of a jazz head just by trying
to understand any aspect of this.
Mm-hmm.

Kyle (01:07:31):
So
the thing I love about the medley interms of the mind expansion, I didn't
even realize at a conscious level untilI looked at the subtitles that tracks
one, two, and three, which are partsA, B, and C. And the medley is D, E,
and F. To your point, the structures,the language of the subtitles mirror

(01:07:52):
each other, A and D, B and E, C, and F.
and that helped me listen out for likethe timestamps where it's shifting
into new movement, a new part ofthe medley, a new movement of the
medley by evoking, by calling back insomething from part A, B, or C. So.

(01:08:13):
If you're struggling to find it at aconscious level, there's just something
about those subtitles that likeprimes your attention for finding it's
counterpart, I guess in the medley.
Uh, you know, so Stop Look or A andd. But, mode F the last one, well, I

(01:08:35):
guess C and FC is Soul Fusion Free Womanand o This Freedom Slave cries just a
beautiful and evocative set of wordsthat sort of sets you in a direction
when you're listening to C And we, we'vetalked about CA number of times already
on this episode, but FFI love and Ifigured you probably love because it

(01:08:56):
reads exactly like a chariot song, title
of Love, pain and Passion Revolt.
Then farewell, my BelovedTill It's Freedom Day.
I have a, that's right, this pistolis my ministry is could be a very
Charles Mingus type of thing.
I have a note in my phone that, I haveone that's lines I wish I'd written

(01:09:22):
that's more lyrics, but when there arelittle phrases that stand out to me.
I guess in an inherently visual way,which I, is probably one of the reasons
that this record really landed with me.
If there's a phrase or a snippet orof collection of words that draws
visuals to my mind, I have them ina note in my phone called paintings.

(01:09:44):
So that when I am compelled to dosomething, make something visual, I
draw from that list and just make whatthat sequence of words makes me feel.
and it's like sometimes it's a quotefrom a show or movie or a lyric.
Sometimes it's a thing like aterm I learned on Wikipedia.

(01:10:05):
Sometimes it's a famous event thathappened or some illusion to a famous
event, but there's like 200 of 'em in thisnote And of love, pain and Passion Revolt.
Then Farewell, my Beloved TillIts Freedom Day is like absolutely
a contender for that list.
I, I get such a wave of envy andadmiration for anyone who can put

(01:10:29):
together a sequence of words that hasa whole rise and fall, tells a man's
whole life in less than a sentence.
And that, that definitely does it.
So in addition to being a great bassplayer and composer Fuck you, man.
You're good with words too, Quitefamously, he was not in his life,
so said his psychologist and hiswife and many of his collaborators.

(01:10:55):
He was so good with musicbecause he was so bad with words.
But damn.
When he was, when he was good withwords, when he was on, he was on.
Man.

Cliff (01:11:02):
He does manage to sound like a William Faulkner AI bot,
uh, sometimes, which is rough.

Kyle (01:11:08):
The sound and the fury would be a great title for, uh, retrospective
on this man's life for sure.

Cliff (01:11:15):
yes.
But I, I think maybe that gives useven another interesting lens to
view Charles Mingus and especially,spoiler for the, the last part of
the episode where we're gonna tellyou ammonia things to listen to you.
You can just go listen to Charles Mingusand you'll be good to go for a while.
There is a lot

Kyle (01:11:35):
I don't think, I don't think I've ever run across an artist where so many
people were like, actually, there'snothing that you can listen to that's like

Cliff (01:11:45):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:11:47):
Actually, if you want something that's like more mingus, just
listen to other Mingus, because I,many have tried all have failed.

Cliff (01:11:54):
Yes, we will hold that truth.
I do want to, I'm gonna call thisperform an excerpt from the liner notes
because you just need to hear whatwas going on in this homie's brain.
But

Kyle (01:12:07):
are are you gonna read from his or Edmund Pollock's

Cliff (01:12:09):
his, I would like to read from his

Kyle (01:12:12):
3,300 words, by the way.
Not a casual amount of writing.
By not, you know, normallysomebody gets somebody else to
write about them for their thing.
Not their psychotherapist, though.
That's kind of an unusual one.

(01:12:32):
words in this thing.
It's fucking long.
Hashtag long read.

Cliff (01:12:40):
yes, and it is alternately completely opaque and hilarious

Kyle (01:12:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Cliff (01:12:47):
But it also, we do a lot of, we, we don't really have to do
it here on a super personal level,but you know, we do a lot of like.
How can we draw out the uniqueness ofthis individual human being without
judging them one way or the other?
And then temporarily suspending them inspace and trying to use that as a way
to appreciate their art without tryingto say a thing about who they were

(01:13:09):
before now, after, later, any of that.
cause if we start trying to drawa too clear of a line in the sand,
we will be moving that line everymoment for the rest of our lives.
so we acknowledge that and we kindof look at that head on in every
episode, especially when people aregetting far too close to that line,

Kyle (01:13:29):
Yeah, we don't, don't draw landlines in the sand, man.
Just be on the beach

Cliff (01:13:36):
but there is a place where if you walk too far into the water, you'll drown.
So there's like a soft line somewhere.

Kyle (01:13:42):
somewhere.
Deep out in the ocean isa crisp brown concert.
You can go to be sure to load up yourpockets with rocks on the way there

Cliff (01:13:50):
idea.
Yes.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Out there.
You can swing your fistas hard as you want.
So

Kyle (01:13:58):
at the God who's not real and doesn't love you.

Cliff (01:14:03):
name or will find you eventually.
With all that fun stuff being said,like the reason I'm bringing it up
here is I think just feeling himtry to use the tools that he had to
use language to describe somethingthat was important to him, I think
is itself pretty illuminating.

(01:14:24):
And there are several selectionsI could choose from, but like
one of them is pretty cool.
Specifically, here we go,quote back to the drum opening.
12, 8, 6, 8, 9, 8, 3, 4, whatevermusical stenographers may care to title.
What the composer heard in his head ispart of a very old idea that someday
all good music will return from itsassorted labels, which inhibit it with

(01:14:46):
fashion styles and certain celebratedrhythms of pounding exactness that lead
this composer To believe that eitherthe musician or the audience playing or
liking such repeated debuts of so-calledmusical inventions must be nuts to need
drums, bass, guitar, and piano to poundout the already two obvious time, night
after night till actually if sanitycan't be sustained, one begins to like

(01:15:09):
it without twisting or even dancing,popping fingers, or at least working out
one's frenzy in ye old brass bed, mama.
So in there, there was a human beingtrying to point out to you that.
Jazz is currently playing dumb to dumbpeople in treating you like you're stupid

(01:15:30):
and he doesn't want to treat you that way.
And he thinks it's stupid thatyou're being treated that way.
Of course, his next sentence is,quote, "Time — perfect or syncopated
time — is when a faucet dribblesfrom a leaky washer," so you can
take it with a grain of salt.
Whatever you think this guy has to sayto you about what you should be doing.
But nevertheless, there's intentionhere and it's in a sense like

(01:15:53):
real brilliance from somebody whodoesn't know how to use words to say
the thing that he's trying to do.

Kyle (01:15:59):
I appreciated how Cormac McCarthy esque that passage
sounded with your narration.

Cliff (01:16:05):
Thank you.

Kyle (01:16:06):
I know there were periods in that, but I sure didn't hear 'em on

Cliff (01:16:11):
No, no.
I'm glad that you didit 'cause there weren't

Kyle (01:16:16):
again.
There are just under 3000 more words justlike that for you to enjoy in sequence

Cliff (01:16:23):
Yes.

Kyle (01:16:24):
and then a much shorter, but equally strange almost screed from his
psychotherapist, the tee up for, whichis, I don't like critics, but if there's
one person who is qualified to be acritic of my music, it's my shrink,
which is like, That's just so good.

(01:16:44):
I do love that we get a bit ofa zoom out from Edmund Pollock.
That's very of the time again,early 1963, but also of right now.
He says to me, this particularcomposition contains Mr. Mingus's
personal and also a social message.
He feels intensively.

(01:17:05):
He tries to tell people he is ingreat pain and anguish because he
loves, he cannot accept that he isalone, a solo dancer all by himself.
He wants to love and be loved.
His music is a call for acceptance,respect, love, understanding,
fellowship freedom, a plea to changethe evil in man and to end hatred.

(01:17:25):
The titles of this composition suggestthe plight of the black man and a
plea to the white man to be aware.
He seems to state that the black man isnot alone, but all mankind must unite
and revolution against any society thatrestricts freedom and human rights.
So that's a lot to imbue onan instrumental work, but I've

(01:17:46):
said a couple of different ways.
I hear a violence in thisrecord, a militarism.
I think of the, that record coverof Felonious Monks, where he's
got the Nazi flag hanging in thebackground in his little man cave.
we've talked about Fela and howmusic must be for Revolution.

(01:18:06):
We've talked a lot, acrossthe franchises of the Tune Dig
Universe about political music.
Like you and I are prettypolitical and outspoken people.
I love that with this record, youdon't have to get any of that at all.
It can just be a purely music education,mind expanding experience, but also so

(01:18:30):
much of the best stuff, the most in myview, capital I important stuff that we've
covered and learned from and been changedby over the course of this podcast.
It forces you to be a student of historyand to look at the context out of which
it was born and always in there, no matterwhen in human history it was, or what
part of human history it's talking about.

(01:18:52):
There's injustice, inequality, slavery,hatred, violence, whatever, and a call
to turn away from it and to transcend it.
And then he packs all that in there.
A crazy thing where he stretches out time,
Like whatever the oppositeof water from a faucet is.

(01:19:12):
it's just a remarkable cosmic giftor psychosis or commitment or all the
above But, like that one A and r guysaid after he saw Jeff Buckley perform,
it's just all in there man, isn't it?
I love that that quality ofMingus music reveals itself.

(01:19:32):
The more and more as you go onthere can be as much or as little
to this as you choose, but you willbe changed for it on some level.
but it is a potent record.
And I think so many people, to yourpoint, have put it at the top of a
list that it has so much potency andit never loses any of that power.
In fact, it gains power themore you work to understand it.

(01:19:55):
so like time, like it does with time,it has an elastic quality to sort of the
shape it takes on in your consciousness.
Sorry, sorry if we're talking toowoo woo, you know, but like, the
best music goes beyond the words.
We have to express them.
The ideas in it.
And so if we're struggling and we'rehitting the Asim tote, that's just the

(01:20:16):
power of Mingus and what's at work here.

Cliff (01:20:19):
No, I love that.
And I, I think it gives us a perfecttrajectory to hit kind of two things.
One is, think at least two ways toapproach listening to this record
again, one of which will speak towhat you were just, elucidating.
And then after that, let's just startgoing into all the ways you can apply
that mode into listening to otherthings and learning other things.

(01:20:42):
'cause there's a lot of reallycool stuff to talk about.
so then ways to listen to the record.
So let's, and don't let me mistcontextualize anything you were saying,
but I think there's so much in whatyou just said that it's overwhelming
and it's hard for us to know.
Like, especially giving allthe confusing signals that we

(01:21:03):
just walked through, like he's.
He's pretty good at communicating thingsmusically, but not great verbally.
And sort of the way he talksmakes you sort of second guess how
critically you wanna be listeningto what he's saying to begin with.
But then on the other hand, it'svery smart and other people say
it's smart and there's just,there's a lot that's happening.
So one, I think method to going backto this one, and especially if you're

(01:21:26):
having trouble locking in, we said thisearlier, but just, if you thought we
were kidding before, now is the time.
Listen to it very loud anddon't do anything else.
Listen to it very loud anddon't do anything else.
Put it in headphones or on yourcar or on your Sonos or whatever.
But it must be loud and it mustbe right at the edge where if you

(01:21:48):
live with somebody else, they'regoing to come ask you why you
were listening to it this loud.
It is very important,

Kyle (01:21:54):
They gonna be big mad.

Cliff (01:21:56):
yes, but similarly to, uh, we could pick a lot of bands out of a hat
right now, but like Converge is not a goodband for you to think that you understand
until you've listening, listened tothem at a blistering volume at least
once, because there is something there.
similarly, I think this is actuallya pretty good brute force record.

(01:22:17):
I don't get it.
I'm not sure I'm gonna get it.
I'm gonna try though, and then justthrow it at yourself loud and then
you'll eventually find a littleavenue that you'll connect to.
I think that's oneperfectly good way to do it.
On the other hand, if you are boughtin or if your brain engages or if you
like jazz or whatever, and you want toengage with it more specifically, I think

(01:22:40):
another very cool way to listen to itthat touches on the way you were talking
about time a second ago, is actually toinstead very intentionally pay attention
to time while you're listening to it.
So, I'm gonna use a quote actually.
So, Todd Jenkins wrote a book from2006 called, I Know What, I Know the

(01:23:01):
music of Charles Mingus, and he doesa lot of really awesome description
of what's happening, in this music.
But I want you to listen to what anotherhuman being wrote about a song and think
about how many times you hear this levelof specificity about what's happening
in music to the degree that you couldwrite this or listen to it or anything.

(01:23:23):
So quote, he's starting with trackA. So like, let's just start with the
very beginning, the very first track.
I'm gonna read you this sort ofoverview of the first track, which gives
timestamps and like, this is a verycool way to experience this record.
So quote, track A, begins withan almost martial drum pattern.
Soon we hear low blats comingfrom Butterfield's Contra base

(01:23:47):
trombone, a recurring whole notealternation in the saxophones.
And finally, Mariano's.
Poignant alto.
A general sense of suspensiongives way to a brisk walk.
Waltz time at 49 seconds seconds justbefore Richardson's anguished baritone
sax solo, the band's volume graduallyincreases, and at two minutes and 29

(01:24:11):
seconds, Danny Richmond suddenly dropsthe waltz pulse, a roll, a tumble, and
then a quiet four, four feeling pervades.
As the melody returns, we comeslowly back to the waltz, beginning
at three minutes and 16 seconds.
As the trumpets and saxes harmonize onthe melody, Richardson takes a soprano
sax solo at four minutes and 11 seconds.

(01:24:33):
One of the very few times that thestraight horn had been heard in Mingus
music up until then, it's a tremendousimprovisation that sets the band ablaze.
It's evident that Richardson was wellaware of what John Coltrane had been
doing with the soprano sax recently.
The track ends rathersuddenly with no exit theme.
I love music and I would have troubletaking even songs I love a lot and

(01:24:59):
writing to that level of specificity
about like he, those words didn't comenecessarily from just the human being
author Todd Jenkins, who wrote this thing.
Just being good at listening to jazzand being critical like this is that
plus an other worldly composition thatis communicating these things directly

(01:25:24):
into this human brain who's noticing allthose things one by one, and then can go
back and tell you a story about it withtimestamps one, I hope that that further
deepens your appreciation for this record.
We're trying to get you to like, or atleast listen to and understand at some
level, but it's also I would encourageyou to take this as a guide and like

(01:25:50):
put it up beside Spotify or whateveron your screen or whatever while you're
listening to it, and literally read itand pay attention to the timestamps.
Go ahead and read to the next sentencewhere it mentions a timestamp.
Pay attention to the, when that timecomes, what's happening before then.
Why does he describe it that way?

(01:26:10):
That is one of the things aboutjazz and classical music that I
think counterintuitively createsa barrier to entry for people.
You can write about it.
And so people start reading thingsand going, I don't understand
or think about music that way.
There must be something I'm not getting.
It's not something you're not getting.

(01:26:30):
It's that the further you go into thisthing, the more it starts to permeate
your other senses and you can startto do, like we were doing at the
beginning of this podcast, like, I'mjust gonna start drawing concepts to
me and then trying to paint them in away that helps you understand how I'm
experiencing music through my ear bones.
I mean, every record is always gonnatake me back to we're on a floating rock

(01:26:53):
and outer space and what is happening,but like this one really activates that
part of me that's like music is magicin a way that other things aren't magic.
And this is one of those records that,that needs to remind you of that.
And you, you, you shouldprobably let yourself,

Kyle (01:27:09):
I love that so much.
So where else do you find magic like this?
Even if it's stuff thatdoesn't sound like Mingus.

Cliff (01:27:17):
There are so many places to go,

Kyle (01:27:18):
Yeah.

Cliff (01:27:20):
I'll start with a few and I'll try to represent as well some of the
more kind of straightforward jazzdirections, with the intention not to
overwhelm people, not to dumb it down.
There is no dumbing down of wherewe're pointing you from here.
It does not, you are not goingback to kids bop from here, bud.

(01:27:42):
So no matter what wesay, it's gonna be fun.
But jazz in particular, I think moremaybe than any other genre of music,
I think is a historically listenable,let me phrase that differently.
'cause even though that'strue, that's not what I mean.
You can hear the history of jazzthrough the records and through

(01:28:03):
jazz artists, maybe more thanany other genre in existence.
and so we mentioned at the beginningof this episode like dis bird.
So that is a very, very good and importantplace to go if you have never gone there
before or if this begins to interest you.
Doing the sort of time travel back andforth across what inspired this and then

(01:28:27):
what came after it is gonna be very good.
But I'm mostly gonna point youback 'cause I think back is
really interesting and cool.
so a few things.
Berg specifically are very important.
Like we talked about, they sort ofpioneered their way into what would become
free jazz, acid, jazz, avant-garde, jazz,all that stuff that came up as a result

(01:28:48):
of technicality and complexity and speed.
So, I think there's a fewplaces you can start with that.
First of all, Charlie Parker with Stringsis an a particular album where, and we
didn't say this part directly, so nowI'm gonna say it, uh, here as well.
Like one characteristic aspect ofthe Black Saint and the Center Lady

(01:29:09):
is the vocalization of trumpet.
Especially it sounds like a persontalking a lot of the time, uh, to the
degree it becomes uncanny in placesand kind of even might bother you
depending on how you listen to it.
Charlie Parker with Strings is aspecific recording that shows Charlie

(01:29:31):
Parker attempting to be more lyricalwith bebop than he usually is.
And secondly, it places him in anorchestral setting, which brings
him automatically closer to theclassical music that Charles Mingus
was, was heavily inspired by.
and so Charlie Parker with Strings willgive you a lot of interesting context

(01:29:53):
about Charlie Parker in particular,but then what sort of happens when you
layer in these other bits, further thanspecifically for Disney Bird together?
Um, there's a record called SummitMeeting at Birdland Live which
is, Much adored record to beginwith, but, there's a song on there.
The very first track iscalled Blue and Boogie.
this is from, 1951 when itwas recorded at Birdland.

(01:30:16):
blue and Boogie is a pretty good,universally regarded example of
D Bird together and the way thatthey could play off of each other.
And that particular recording, wasagain a really good example of it.
and then if you wanna go even furtherinto this, there was again, we're
really trying to draw all the, like,capital m most important jazz records

(01:30:37):
of all time, as much as we can.
There's one called theQuintet Jazz at Massey Hall.
It's widely regarded as maybethe best live jazz thing that's
ever happened and been recorded.
but that was Charlie Parker, dizzyGillespie and Charles Mingus,
and Bud Powell and Max Roach.
And so we, it's some real Alisterstuff and, there are a few other places

(01:31:03):
where Disen Bird, played with, someonelike, um, I'm trying, I can't think of
the exact record I'm thinking of now,but They, they have one where they
played with Felonious Monk and theybasically just like played all over
him and you can't really hear him.
And that's like a phenomenonthat you have to keep up with in
especially live jazz recordings.
You kind of gotta go back and read andlisten to what jazz heads kind of say

(01:31:24):
about what, what gets drawn out where.
so anyway, trying to give some examplesof really good instructive places
you can learn more about Bird Diz.
and then the, the other quick thingsI'd mention and then I want to hear
everything Kyle Pepper's in here.
so other pretty simple butstraightforward directions.
One is just the Mingus direction.

(01:31:44):
I already mentioned Mingus, ah, AUM.
A HUM, was one of his previous records.
we think maybe we royally we think thatwhen he had that quote earlier about like,
you should throw out all my other recordsexcept for maybe one other one that may
have been the one he was talking about.
And is again regarded asone of his best efforts.

(01:32:04):
So, lots of Mingus.
Another easy one that we mentionedwas, miles Davis and Bitches Brew.
Like We have a whole podcast episode.
Helping you with that Bitches Brewis super cool, but also because
Miles Davis was idolizing thesame people at the same time and
took a different approach to jazz.
Once again, it gives you a like,comparison and contrast way to

(01:32:25):
understand what's being done musically.
And then lastly, from me.
I will point you in truly weird directionsif like us, there is a part of you
that goes, I like it when I feel weird.
There is also more jazz for you and youcan push harder in this direction all
the way into the places where it doescrossover into being abrasive as the act.

(01:32:52):
It is no longer trying to be acomposition that's just difficult.
It's abrasive by default.
and things in that directionwould include, which I'm glad
you mentioned earlier, om byJohn Coltrane is a very good one.
Like you can get it and not get it atexactly the same time and that's pretty
much all you're gonna take away from that

Kyle (01:33:10):
That's a hard record to finish,

Cliff (01:33:12):
Y

Kyle (01:33:13):
but worth but worth it to try.

Cliff (01:33:15):
Yeah.
So that's one.
And again, gives you an example of someonelike, Coltrane and what they started to
think about what jazz could become ifthey totally released any constraints
on it, um, but other sort of classical.

Kyle (01:33:29):
I'm sorry.
Now I'm thinking about JohnColtrane in the context of release
your inhibitions and O is, om ishim feeling the rain on his skin.
No one else can do it for you.
Only you can let it in.
The rest is
still

Cliff (01:33:47):
one else.
Yeah, that's, thanks.

Kyle (01:33:53):
And now Natasha Bedingfield does a Love Supreme.

Cliff (01:33:56):
that song has to play all the way out mentally, doesn't

Kyle (01:33:59):
It really does.
It's a, it is a perfect song.

Cliff (01:34:02):
Woo.
that was a fun distraction challenge.
two other very classical capital Ddifficult jazz records for you if
you are interested in this direction.
Unit structures by Cecil Taylor.
and, you could probably just picka thing from Sun Ron General, but
cosmic tones for musical or for mentaltherapy is another very good example

(01:34:24):
of one that's just like, oh, this isuniversally dense, and very difficult to
sort of understand or otherwise enjoy.
But there is coolness and interestingstuff there to, but uh, is fundamentally
weirder than what we are talking aboutand what we have talked about today.
So more, more on that far endof stretching your ability to

(01:34:48):
listen and understand things.
but hopefully I've sort ofdrawn a big circle around
all of this that'll help you.
What do you

Kyle (01:34:53):
Yeah, you had so much good stuff.
I, definitely listed some ofthe, like, if you wanna push
into freak land, Cecil Taylor.
Albert Aler is another oneon our tune day calendar.
Definitely ohm, there's some greatPharaoh Sanders, that toast the line

(01:35:14):
between spiritual and really free,like Pharaoh Sanders preview is one of
those that gets pulled up a good bit.
Ornette Coleman, you know,shape of jazz to come.
He literally has analbum called Free Jazz.
tone Dialing is anothergreat Ornette Coleman.
So there's all that stuff.
There's this one record that, a blogcalled The Hum Put me on too, by the Matay

(01:35:41):
Umoja Ensemble on it's called Lan and Landof the Blacks Live at the East in 1972.
And the first sentence of thisguy's review, this is like seven
albums that were made possibleby Black Saint and Center Lady.
The first sentence of hisreview about this record is this
album is a mean motherfucker.
It's an amazing document of thepurifier of black nationalist free jazz.

(01:36:04):
All right, bro, sign me up.
I will listen to that loud next as well.
Let's do it.
so Leroy Jenkins on that record,Henry Thread Grill gets pulled up
a lot in the Mingus conversation.
The record Spirit of n Enoughis the one people talk about,
definitely a lot of Sun Ra.

(01:36:26):
we saw Billy Cobham not terribly longago, so he was top of mind as like a,
a technically proficient band leader,big personality type of person.
So like Stratus is.
Absolutely essential.
a must, must do, must conquer,like it's a banger of a record.
and you'll hear where the drumpattern for Hot for Teacher came from.

(01:36:49):
If you'll send to Stratus, I thinkthere's an anthropological dimension
of Mingus that's really great.
I love thinking of Mingus as aquintessentially American ambassador in
all of his problematic and volcanic ways.
I just love, that he'ssuch an honest American.
so listening to Mingus makesme wanna listen to all the

(01:37:10):
things that he's threaded in,specifically 20th century classical.
Your Gershwins, yourBernsteins, your Stravinsky's.
I haven't had a good reason to pullup Dixieland music in a long time,
but like getting to know Jelly RollMorton or Fatz Waller, or Red Allen, or
Bix Beck, any of those cats that caninform the infinitesimal touchpoints

(01:37:34):
that go into the ability to be Mingus.
So I think doing some of the homework,the Ken Burns type homework around
it, I mean, hell watch Kin Burns hisjazz to learn to appreciate Mingus
more, all however many hours of it.
Thinking about the jazz strains aroundhim and, you know, sorry, the, to
disrespectfully start with the genre thathe said he didn't want to be associated

(01:37:58):
with, but was like, he's what makes Jazzso great because he's so singular in it.
Starting from that point, I thought abouthow much hip hop is informed by jazz in a
lot of ways, like is a jazz form of now.
And we've talked about thatintersection with Bad, bad, no good.
And certainly with Kendrick.

(01:38:18):
So I started with Kendrick because likeif you love Kendrick, I think you can
come to Love Mingus and vice versa.
and that's not just because he has likean explicitly jazz record and butterfly.
And then that made me thinkabout Kamasi and Kamasi made
me think about Brain Feeder.
And Brain Feeder made me think about FlyLow and Fly Low made me think about El-P.

(01:38:40):
The Contra base in the first trackreminded me of the beat from Run
the Jewels three, one of the sortof like mid tempo sadder songs.
And I can't, maybe it is thesong with Kamasi playing on
it, the Danger Room song,
but LPs production is very dense andMingus-y, and I thought about the like.

(01:39:05):
From there, the black excellencetraditions of Earl Sweatshirt who just
put out an absolutely monster new recordand is becoming the poet Laureate.
His dad was, the older he gets.
I think about Mike all caps in my kewho will put you on everyone from Fela

(01:39:27):
to Sister Nancy to whatever with hissamples and his visual art and all that.
So there's cool hip hop that Ithink feels in the spirit of Mingus.
And then I thought about like iconoclasticalbums that are worlds unto themselves.
They get sonically kind of freaky.
They're a big, bold expressionfrom their creators.

(01:39:47):
the first one that sent me down thatrabbit hole was Smile by the Beach Boys.
that was invoked in a lot ofwritings because they were going
for a similarly motif thing.
I thought about Signof the Times by Prince.
big and sprawling thing but anessential entry point for Prince.
I thought about Fun House by the Stooges' cause that's a super freaked out record.

(01:40:11):
And sort of an essential mindexpansion document of my youth.
I thought about thebad brains with Mingus.
I thought about and then I thought aboutheavy stuff and, I wouldn't be, I dunno
that I wouldn't be, but certainly noton the level or the depth that I am.

(01:40:32):
Like heavy music and jazz wouldn'tbe central to my identity like they
are if it weren't for our friendship.
And a few things that came to mindwere like quintessentially Cliff heavy
records that are very Mingus-y to me.
One, which I alluded to earlier, isThe Painter's Palette by Ephel Duath.

Cliff (01:40:52):
Fuck yeah.

Kyle (01:40:53):
which I haven't heard you talk about in a long time, but I know it was like a
critical document for you and somethingthat, something that you made me listen
to probably 20 years ago at this point,where I was just like, what is happening?
Pleased to report I listened to itnot too long ago and it still holds
up, Italian, Italian group, right?

Cliff (01:41:13):
I thought French maybe, but I'm

Kyle (01:41:15):
Yeah.

Cliff (01:41:16):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:41:17):
Somewhere, somewhere yonder.
I thought about.
Greg Anderson.
it's easy to, anything that's like smartand mind expanding, I always go to Sun.
and so we've probably mentionedthem an obnoxious amount of times
on this podcast, but it's nevera bad time to drone out with Sun.
But I inversely thought of EngineKid, his early freaked out project,

(01:41:41):
but then the record just becauseof a thing that recently happened.
The record that I thought of in moreof a pronounced way than anything else
I've just mentioned is Crack the Skye.
and you know, Brent Hines withwhom we have a, a contentious
relationship being at LANs whoexperienced him in person a great deal.

(01:42:04):
I have a lot of feelings about BrentHines, but one thing is undeniable is
that he, like Mingus was a volcanicpersonality, with a lot to say and
more talent than any human knowswhat to do with, and a completely
singular way of thinking aboutand playing music at all times.

(01:42:25):
That's just.
And a replicable cellular levelcombination of factors that will
never happen again in a million years.
We said, only Mingus sounds like Mingus.
Only Brent Hines sounds like Brent Hines.
And thinking about the time stretchingaspects of Black Saint, I think about
crack the sky, which is about cosmicexploration of inner and outer space.

(01:42:49):
And there's so much pain in that recordand, so much hope in that record I don't
know, it's an interesting time to listento either one of them on their own, but
I hope that we're the first two peopleto ever sit those on a shelf next to
each other and say, maybe go there next.

(01:43:11):
there's a lot of beautifulplaces that you can go.
with this record I would say thethroughline of all the things
that I just shared is strainsof Black Saint should lead you.
It should be a palate pusher, youknow, it should lead you to stranger
Frontiers more challenging frontiers or.
It should try to lead you to findwhat's the pinnacle of human expression?

(01:43:35):
How poignant can someone get the essenceof their truth or their view of the world?
How perfectly can they distill it?
How, how close to 180-proof canthey get the meaning of life
through the sounds that they make?
Because that's really what, BlackSaint successfully achieves.

Cliff (01:43:55):
Agreed.
I think the best way to close outis once again with a quote from the
incredibly well articulated CharlesMingus, as he talks again about this
record, but I think sets this upreally well and sort of pushes you
forward in the direction I hope thatwe have set you on during this episode.
So, as he has gone through thevery long liner notes that we've

(01:44:20):
already mentioned, he is basicallydoing the Common Liner note thing.
He's speaking sort of directly tothe people who helped him record
this and saying funny things andmaking quips and talking about
the music and all sorts of things.
And it's interesting and fine, but herolls through everybody and then he says.
Quote, last and least is me.

(01:44:42):
I wrote the music fordancing and listening.
It is true music with muchand many of my meanings.
It is my living epitaph from birth tillthe day I first heard of Bird and Diz.
Now it is me again.
This music is only one little wave ofstyles and waves of little ideas that my

(01:45:03):
mind has encompassed through living in asociety that calls itself saying, as long
as you're not behind iron bars where thereare at least one can't be half crazy.
As in most of the ventures ourleaders take upon themselves to do
and think for us, even to the day,we should be blown up to preserve
their idea of how life should be.
Crazy.

(01:45:24):
They'd never get out of the observationward at Bellevue, but I did.
So listen how... Play this record.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 69: Charles Mingus's "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady"

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Episode 69: Charles Mingus's "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady"

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