Charles Mingus

Wuppertal, 26 April 1964. The tour that produced the Town Hall, Paris, Amsterdam and Bremen tapes, the last months of Eric Dolphy's life, and a band that now reads like a roll call: Charles Mingus, Dolphy on alto, bass clarinet and flute, Clifford Jordan on tenor, Jaki Byard on piano, Dannie Richmond on drums.

The concert at the Stadthalle was promoted by E. Dieter Fränzel for the Zeitkunst Gesellschaft and recorded by Günter Schütte. Enja released the first volume in 1980, sixteen years later, and it received a German Phono Academy recommendation in 1981.

The LP had two pieces: a Fables of Faubus that runs thirty-seven minutes, and Starting, a duet for Dolphy's flute and Mingus's bass. The CD adds a twenty-two-minute Meditations, the other long-form piece from that tour. Scott Yanow at AllMusic writes that although the music could be called avant-garde, there is nothing random about the notes chosen or the emotions expressed. Dolphy stayed in Europe when the band went home and died in Berlin on 29 June.

Japanese CD edition from Solid's Enja Real Jazz Classics series.