The Duke

Steve Halle’s comment to my Mingus post made me break out the Mingus box set, Thirteen Pictures, which I haven’t listened to in a while, to hear one song, Duke Ellington’s "Wig Wise." Ellington, Mingus, and Max Roach on drums make one of the best lineups for a trio ever. Ellington on "Wig Wise" plays as if he were Mario Andretti alone at the test track casually taking a new prototype Ferrari for a leisurely 200 mph first spin. There’s nothing to prove when the world has already been conquered. He only turns up the heat once in the entire song, as his first solo reaches a mild crescendo of self-assuredness and then Ellington slyly pulls back and retreats again into subtlety and wisdom. Mingus cleverly squeezes solos neatly inside his backbeat bass rhythms almost nearly at the same time that Duke is taking his own lush solos, and both must’ve been smiling at this interchange—a game of chess between mafia don and his number one hired gun. Three+ minutes of jazz perfection.

This morning I also felt like throwing on the ESP Milford Graves disc, You Never Heard Such Sounds In Your Life. ESP, the record label, has a stellar catalogue, and the story of ESP records is nearly as interesting as the list of artists they recorded. From 1964 to 1975 ESP issued many remarkable dates with jazz and folk artists, starting in '64 with the Albert Ayler side, Spiritual Unity. ESP avowed that they would record iconoclasts and let the artists decide what constituted a final take--ideas that seem even more avant-garde in light of today's music scene, where corporate interests have eclipsed what remained of artistic integrity. You Never Heard Such Sounds In Your Life, with Milford Graves and Sunny Morgan, is a certified gem because its multi-layered, waves of percussion are so rewarding after repeat listenings. It's one of the most unique discs I own because it's completely free of any influence other than the sounds that may be produced by percussive effects. Within the span of any given two minutes on this recording there are numerous percussive infinitesimals, which lead the listener down multiple sonic pathways--some are blind alleys, but the sum total of the effort is huge. ESP's catalog is amazing.