Epitaph (Mingus)

Epitaph is the master work of jazz musician Charles Mingus. It is a composition which is more than 4000 measures long, requires two hours to perform and was only completely discovered during the cataloguing process after his death. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller, in a concert produced by Sue Mingus at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after Mingus's death.

Ill fated attempt to record Epitaph

There was one ill-fated attempt to record some of this during Mingus's lifetime; a 1962 Town Hall concert. The title of the album is Town Hall Concert and has two tracks marked "Epitaph Pt. I" and "Epitaph Pt. II", and other tracks including "Clark In the Dark", for trumpter Clark Terry who played in the band. Epitaph was never put into a coherent whole the way the posthumous Epitaph does.

Related Topics:
Town Hall Concert - Clark Terry

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The liner notes don't give much factual information; mostly historical background and descriptive info by critic Bill Coss. The musicians included

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• Charles Mingus - bass
• Eric Dolphy - alto sax
• Charles McPherson - alto sax
• Jerome Richardson - baritone sax
• Pepper Adams - baritone sax
• Clark Terry - trumpet
• Quentin Jackson - trombone
• Toshiko Mariano (nee Akiyoshi) - piano
• Dannie Richmond - drums

Certainly many musicians are missing from this list. The exact date is under some question; the liner notes say November 1962, but a Martin Williams review of the concert in Saturday Review (subsequently published in "Jazz Masters in Transition" and probably other Williams anthologies) says December. Other sources have given the date as the October 12, 1962. The liner notes get the order of the tunes wrong and fail to recognize "In a Mellow Tone" (it's labeled "Finale"), so the Williams review is probably more accurate. An review authored by Bill Coss subsequently appeared in the December 6, 1962 edition of Downbeat magazine titled simply "A Report of a Most Remarkable Event" (this was subsequently reprinted in the January 2005 edition of Downbeat).

Related Topics:
Downbeat

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The gig was apparently incredibly disorganized. From the liner notes: "...this record represents a curious combination of open recording session and concert on a New York City Town Hall stage that held thirty musicians, two men still copying the music to be played, no play-back equipment, and a host of unbelievable tensions."

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From Williams's review: "The occasion was supposed to have been a public recording date, but the producers' announcements and ads somehow came out reading 'concert.' At one point during the proceedings, Mingus shouted to his audience, advising, 'Get your money back!'"

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From the Coss article: "The microphone Mingus grabbed had no amplification, but what he said, more or less, was: "Get your money back. I couldn't stop you from coming here. The press agents lied to you. You've been taken advantage of. Go out now and get your money back. I don't want you to think I've done this to you. It was supposed to be a recording session, but Mr. George Wein, who is a fine promoter, changed it into a concert. So get your money back. The company has lots of money. It would take years to rehearse this music"."

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

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