The O'Zone | The Baron & The Duke
The Baron & The Duke
A jazz aristocrat and a storm trapped in a suit,
Duke, an archipelago of calm.
Mingus is the volcanic follower.
Leader and disciple both stubborn as the earth,
writing music of forever.
These great composers of truth and beauty swinging.
Duke sits at the keys,
Suave in silk and effortless elegance,
Painting with Sugar Hill penthouse hues.
He is the architect of the cool cathedral,
leading with a tilt of the chin,
diplomat of stride piano,
masking the complexity of a thousand blue suites
behind a smile that says “I love you madly.”
Then comes Mingus,
a shout in a room of whispers,
eyes burning with the fire of a man
who refuses to be a ghost in his own music.
Anger is his engine–
A holy burning pulling the truth out of four strings
Duke exhales a cloud of indigo,
Mingus igniting fire beneath it.
The volcano and the moon share the stand
One breaking the world to fix it,
the other watching it spin with a cool knowing smile.
Charles Mingus first heard Duke Ellington on the radio when he was 8 years old. Duke became and remained a primary influence for the rest of his life. Upon seeing Ellington live for the first time, the experience was so visceral that (according to Mingus) he “almost jumped out of the balcony.” He described himself as being so overwhelmed that he screamed out loud during the performance. This initial encounter sparked a lifelong obsession. Mingus frequently stated that he was “born loving Duke Ellington.”
Duke Ellington initially viewed the young Charles Mingus as a prodigious talent with an “organizational genius” that reminded peers of a young Duke himself. In 1953, Duke hired Mingus to sit in for regular bassist Wendell Marshall while Marshall was away. Mingus was widely recognized as one of the most proficient and innovative double bass players in jazz history. Duke recognized a similar approach to composition.
Ellington expressed interest in Mingus’s compositions. Like Ellington, Mingus didn’t write for anonymous instruments but rather tailored his music to the specific “musical personalities” of his band members.
As can happen at a special moment, a long wished for event can crash and burn, resulting in inevitable disappointment.
Only a few weeks into Mingus’s tenure in Ellington’s band, Mingus and Juan Tizol got into a strong disagreement backstage. Mingus had a volatile temperament and got into a heated physical altercation with trombonist Juan Tizol. Mingus don’t take no mess!
Tizol asked Mingus to play a specific bass part he had written, Mingus found the part to be too low and muddy so he played it an octave higher…an argument ensued and Tizol brandished a machete and Mingus grabbed a fire axe and thanks to Tizol’s speedy escape (with Mingus in hot pursuit) no blood was shed.
Ellington rarely fired anyone and hated doing it. He reportedly let Mingus go with his characteristic charm. Legend has it that he complimented Mingus’s “performance” during the fight, comparing his agility while brandishing a fire axe to an adagio routine before politely asking him to resign to maintain the band’s professional reputation.
The Duke explained, “Juan Tizol is an old problem…you seem to have a whole bag of new tricks…why don’t you resign?”
Money Jungle “A Wonderful Fight”
Duke and producer Alan Douglas (1931-2014) was an influential and controversial American record producer, best known for managing the posthumous musical legacy of Jimi Hendrix and for signing and producing The Last Poets. He began his career working with Ellington in Paris and as head of the jazz division at United Artist Records where he had a conversation about a new project. Douglas wanted to capture Ellington in a small-group context, telling him, “Let’s do it with people who are from your mold, the next generation.”
With that in mind, he suggested Charles Mingus for the bass chair. Mingus, though notoriously difficult, agreed on the condition that Max Roach would be the drummer. The two had a history from a cross country road trip: a recipe for disharmony. Susan Mingus (Mingus’s eventual wife, manager, and agent) said what would happen later was “Vintage Mingus.”
Years later, I found the album in a used record store called Record Revival, a place that built my fledgling jazz collection. Many an album was purchased because of a cool album cover or because of the line up of musicians; but this…I knew about this.
I had read Ellington’s epic autobiography Music is My Mistress. I grabbed it immediately as Duke talked about the session. Linnard Scott was employed at the store. Known as Scotty, he was a friend and mentor and later on a colleague.
“Money Jungle!!” he exclaimed one day. “You DO like Mingus, don’t you? Check this one out.” Oh Yeah! ultimately wound out becoming my favorite Mingus album, but more about that in another O’Zone.
The session was to be a respite from the daily pressure of being Duke Ellington…conflict management, artistic control, the crushing realities of racial discrimination, and the logistics of a touring big band during the Jim Crow era.
Ellington was between recording contracts at the time, so the session took place under Mingus’s contract with United Artists. There were no rehearsals; Ellington handed out lead sheets and described the mood for each piece.
Duke once explained, “Charles Mingus and Max Roach were both leaders of their own groups, but what was wanted now was the kind of performance that results when all the minds are intent on and concerned with togetherness.”
Tension Bloom
The air in Sound Makers Studio is a thick humid haze,
there is turmoil in the air.
A poetic description of a delicate African flower
adorns the lead sheet.
Duke sits at the piano,
the old lion who has seen every season.
Mingus is a secret storm on the musical horizon.
carrying a bass and a backpack full of grievances.
No room on the tape for his songs
testing the boundaries of the ducal seal.
Next to him, Max Roach–his icy precision always there.
The ghosts of old arguments,
the beef between them
is the other instrument in the room.
Mingus is the architect of his own wreckage,
Lights a match in Duke’s cathedral
notorious for the walk-out,
the mid-set sermon,
the self inflicted wound.
He stops, he snarls,
“I can’t work with that drummer,” he spits,
The words are broken glass in studio silence
He packs his gear and heads to the elevator
the session hanging by a fraying thread.
But Ellington–the Duke, the Edward–
doesn’t yell or command.
He moves through the anger like smoke,
talking Charles down off that high lonesome ledge
with the grace of a man who knows that fire
is just energy waiting for a shape.
He lures the bull back into the ring with a whisper.
And then, the music.
No longer a fight, but a fusion.
A beautiful, jagged, impossible session.
“Fleurette Africaine” blooms–
a jungle flower of a tune,
Delicate and dark,
rooted in the black mud of their collective genius,
petals opening in the silence.
The Money Jungle isn’t a trap anymore,
just a place where three giants finally learned
to breathe the same rarified air.
More of Ellington’s recollections, excerpted from his memoir: Music is My Mistress
“He finished packing up his bass and went out to the elevator door. I followed him there, and after he had rolled off a few more beefs, and when he was in the elevator about to push the button, I said quietly and slowly;
“Mingus my man, United Artists gave you a full page ad in the Christmas Billboard. It was beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
“You know,” I continued, “if Columbia Records had spent
That kind of money on promoting me, I would still be with them today.”
He picked up his bass, came back into the studio, and we recorded very happily from then on until the album was completed.”
Stay connected to KUVO’s programs and our community! Sign up for the Oasis E-News today!
