A jazz giant speaks to our times on Ethan Philion’s “Meditations on Mingus”

Album review: Ethan Philion Meditations on Mingus (Sunnyside)

Ethan Philion will present the full-ensemble “Meditations on Mingus” at the Chicago Jazz Festival on Sept. 2, and at the North Street Cabaret in Madison on Sept. 10, and a quartet version at Bar Centro in Milwaukee on Sept. 11.

Imagine a sculptor laboring over the Mount Rushmore of modern jazz giants and, somehow, forgetting about Charles Mingus. Through some boisterous psychic phenomenon, Mingus would barge into the artist’s consciousness and muscle his way into the layout of great granite figures. Mingus had a personality as large as his talents, and his social consciousness. These qualities all arise in a simmering stew called Meditations on Mingus by Chicago bassist-arranger and bandleader Ethan Philion.

Key to this project’s accomplishment is Philion understanding how pointedly Mingus’s 1960s music addresses America’s open societal wounds and flaws of today. This 10-piece band (including Milwaukee trumpeter Russ Johnson) bristles, wails, and swings like a 10-headed-demon inspired by the jazz gods. Mingus emerged from jazz god Ellington, retaining The Duke’s gifts for lyricism and fine detail. Yet Mingus upped the quotient of fiery, chest-pounding large-ensemble jazz.

Ethan Philion’s Mingus Big Band live at the Green Mill in Chicago. Courtesy ethanpilion.com

For example, on the opening “Once Upon a Time in a Holding Corporation called Old America,” the music ripples and reaches for the sky while keeping its collective feet deep in the funky earth. It evokes the profound income inequality that is worse today than ever. “Haitian Fight Song” boils and stomps, exemplifying how Mingus horn ensembles could mutate into one strangely beautiful creature of defiance.

“Pithecanthropus Erectus” is a striking musical portrait of homo sapiens rising from ape to human; it’s superbly orchestrated myriad voices, from cacophony to harmonized reason (and back), comments on the struggles of “man” to truly achieve humanity. Philion’s liner notes include an ominous Mingus quote to help signify the tune: “His own failure to realize the inevitable emancipation of those he sought to enslave…deny him not only the right of ever being a man, but finally destroy him completely.”

Bassist-arranger-bandleader Ethan Philion with trumpeter Victor Garcia. Courtesy Ethan Philion

Blues-infused, mournful and dramatic, “Meditation on a Pair of Wire Cutters” is a vivid small-picture evocation of a man’s incarceration, strengthened and sustained by dreams of freedom.

By contrast, “Remember Rockefeller at Attica,” is an ironically titled big picture on prison’s institutional racism. In 1971, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller notoriously rejected a requested visit to Attica Prison to address the black inmates’ grievances, thus spurring a prison uprising, which 1,000 white state troopers smashed by killing 33 inmates and 10 hostages. President Richard Nixon spun the tragedy as a triumph of governmental justice. Medical examiners confirmed that all but the deaths of one officer and three inmates were caused by law enforcement gunfire.[1][10] The New York Times writer Fred Ferretti said the rebellion concluded in “mass deaths that four days of taut negotiations had sought to avert”. The Attica Uprising has been described as a historical event in the prisoners’ rights movement.

Throughout Meditations, Philion conveys Mingus’s brilliance with tight-yet-liberated ensembles, bounding with call-and-response passages, and an inner fire that spurs soloists to heights of fire and ardor (especially alto sax player Rajiv Halim, on the bracing “Prayer for Passive Resistance”).

In referring back to the music as I wrote this, I’m continually captivated by the richness of the compositions, arrangements and the colorful soloists. Jazz doesn’t get any better.

Remember Rockefeller, sure, but remember Mingus indeed – hearing this album he’s as alive as a man breathing right down your neck.

Charles Mingus. Courtesy New England Conservatory of Music

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This review was originally published in shorter form in The Shepherd Express, here: Mingus music review

For information on, and to purchase, this album, visit: https://ethanphilion.com/home

 

 

 

 

 

Milwaukee’s premiere trumpeter-composer Russ Johnson to play Chicago Jazz Festival September 2

  • Trumpeter-bandleader Russ Johnson. Courtesy Chicago Reader
  • Let’s give it up for Milwaukee trumpeter (Shorewood resident) Russ Johnson, who may be the finest jazz trumpeter living in the upper Midwest. He will be leading a quartet at Chicago Jazz Festival on at 1:50 p.m., Saturday, September 2 at the Von Freeman Pavilion, named for legendary Chicago saxophonist.
  • You can catch Russ in town regularly, as he plays most Tuesday evenings in the Dave Bayles Trio at the uptown or Tavern, at the corner of Humboldt and center Street, in Riverwest.
  • The Russ Johnson Quartet will do a warm-up for the Chicago fest at The Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27 in Bay View. The quartet includes Johnson, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Ethan Philion and drummer Tim Daisy.
  • Mark Feldman. Courtesy Soapbox Gallery
  • Feldman is a vastly experienced musician as a symphony orchestra player and has played with country stars, and a wide array of jazz and avant-garde musicians. including recording with Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, and Chris Potter.
  • Though I haven’t heard Philion, he’s notable as the leader of a new Sunnyside recording Meditations on Mingus, leading a ten-piece band in a sequence of substantial Charles Mingus compositions. Johnson is a trumpeter on that recording,
  • Johnson says his festival quartet is also recording this fall, and that a prominent European label has already expressed interest.
  • Don’t miss the quartet in Milwaukee, if you can’t make it for the big Chicago event.
  • The Chicago Jazz Festival, sponsored by the city and others, is still a free event, though you need tickets to some events.
  • At bottom is one more recommendation for the fest, and a link to the fest schedule, ticketing and website.
  • (FWIW, here’s my review of Johnson’s 2014 album Meeting Point) :

    Trumpeter Russ Johnson opens new vistas in jazz conversation

  • September 2 Chicago Jazz Festival 
  • Von Freeman Pavilion (North Promenade)
  • 11:30am-12:25pm – Regina Harris Baiocchi (Jazz Institute of Chicago’s New Works, Fresh Voices)
  • 12:40-1:35pm – Arman Sangalang Quartet
  • 1:50-2:45pm – Russ Johnson Quartet
  • 3:00-4:00pm  – Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days

Here’s a YouTube of a set of the quartet, recorded live in March:

  • Milwaukee trumpeter Russ Johnson at the Uptowner Tavern with the Dave Bayles Trio (above and below) Photos by Kevin Lynch
  • Another recommendation for the Chicago Jazz Festival is the alto saxophonist-composer Miguel Zenon who’s riding his new superb recording Musica De Las Americas.
  • He performs at 8 p.m. in Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St., on Sunday, September 3.
  • Miguel Zenon. Courtesy Wikipedia
  • The album further deepens his creative resourcing of his Puerto Rican music roots, this time with all originals rather than doing historic reclamation of underexposed Puerto Rican composers as he’s done several times in recent years.
  • His work amounts to a profound excavation and bridging of the Latin connection in music of the Americas.
  • Plus, Zenon has as dynamically charged and cohesive a quartet, including Luis Perdomo one of my favorite pianists, as you’ll hear in jazz. Musica De Las Americas is augmented by the percussion and vocal quartet Los Pleneros De La Cresta.
  • Zenon’s new music is pensive, probing, lyrical and exhilarating, by turns. It raises and musically waves a rippling flag of identity while conveying that identity’s universality as a musical language.
  • Here’s a link to the festival info: Chicago Jazz Festival 2022