Sunday Morning Vinyl

Record: Ella at Duke's Place
Artist: Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington
Released: Verve Records, 1965

This month Rolling Stone magazine released its list of the top 200 singers of all time. If we put aside the foolishness of such an endeavor and forgive the authors for the fact that they're actually in the business of generating clicks and comments and subscriptions, we must admit that it would be a fun activity to crack open some beers with a few friends and take turns linking your phones to a bluetooth speaker on the table as you make your case for one singer or another. Do you prefer Bono or Bruce? Mariah or Whitney? John, Paul, George, or Ringo?

But lists like these exist only to spark debate. So here's my quibble with this particular list. When I first clicked on the link, I went straight to number one (Aretha Franklin, if you must know), and scrolled backwards looking for one name in particular, fully expecting to find it in the top ten. Or at least the top twenty. Maybe the top thirty or forty? But it wasn't until I got to #45 that I found the name I was looking for -- Ella Fitzgerald.

(Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised. When the magazine produced a top 100 back in 2008, Ella didn't even make the list. Also of note, Mariah Carey jumped from #79 in 2008 to #5 this year, and Whitney Houston climbed from #34 to #2. It's not an exact science, apparently.)

The thing about Ella Fitzgerald is that she's unlike any singer you'll ever hear. I don't want to diminish the work of modern musicians like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, brilliant artists in their own right, but Lady Ella's career spanned more than six decades, or roughly the combined age of those two ingenues. 

But it's Ella's versatility, not just her longevity, that truly sets her apart. This collaboration with Duke Ellington highlights everything she can do. As the record opens with "Something to Live For," the first track on what's called "The Pretty, the Lovely, the Tender, the Hold-Me-Close Side" of the record, Ella hits the listener with a line as syrupy smooth as anything Billie Holiday might sing:

I have almost everything a human could desire,
Cars and houses, bear-skin rugs to lie before my fire.
But there's something missing,
Something isn't there,
It seems I'm never kissing the one whom I care for.
I want something to live for...

It's a classic standard from composer Billy Strayhorn (though Ellington gets a credit as well), but Ella makes it her own, putting her soul into every syllable of a song she'd one day name as her favorite. From there she makes her way through four other ballads, including "I Like the Sunrise," a hopeful Ellington tune commissioned for a 1947 celebration marking the centennial of Liberia's independence.

All of it's thoroughly gorgeous, but it's the flip side, "The Finger-Snapping, Head-Shaking, Toe-Tapping, Go-For-Yourself Side" that I can't get enough of. The opening track, "Imagine My Frustration," teeters between blues and something close to rock and roll, and the energy only seems to build as the record spins towards the closing song.

Remember the versatility I mentioned? Ella Fitzgerald, the Queen of Jazz, opens the record with a song that evokes a lounge singer on stage, perhaps leaning forlornly against a piano with cigarette smoke gently spiraling through the single beam of a spotlight. And she finishes with another Ellington tune, "Cotton Tail," a high-tempo vehicle for Ella to unleash her trademark scatting, a vocal styling in which she leaves lyrics behind and allows her voice to become an instrument alongside the horns in Ellington's band. 

And it's truly amazing. If improvisation is the cornerstone of jazz performance, Ella is one of the few vocalists to fully embrace the possibility of vocal improvisation. This track allows her to have a call-and-response conversation with Ellington saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, with each artist laying down a bar or two before listening to an echo from the other. (Take a look at this amazing video of a live performance recorded just a few months after the studio recording. Ella and Paul trade licks side by side at the front of the stage for more than two glorious minutes.) 

Fifty-seven years later "Cotton Tail" is mind-blowing, but the reaction in the moment was no different. According to Leonard Feather's liner notes, "When the final tape was played back, the orchestra and everyone else present burst into applause. Grinning in happy embarrassment, Ella said, 'Aw, you're just saying that because you are in a hurry to get out of here!' But I suspect she knew, just as we all did, that nothing could top the inspiration of this magnificent take."

Six decades later, nothing does.

Side 1
"The Pretty, the Lovely, the Tender, the Hold-Me-Close Side"
1. Something to Live For
2. A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing
3. Passion Flower
4. I Like the Sunrise
5. Azure

Side 2
"The Finger-Snapping, Head-Shaking, Toe-Tapping, Go-For-Yourself Side"
1. Imagine My Frustration
2. Duke's Place
3. Brownskin Gal in the Calico Gown
4. What Am I Here For?
5. Cotton Tail

Record: Mingus Revisited
Artist: Charles Mingus
Released: Limelight Records, 1965

The cover of this record tells you everything you need to know. To steal a phrase from the modern parlance, back in the 1960s Charles Mingus was playing chess while everyone else played checkers. Look at him as he sits comfortably before the board, fingers intertwined, eyes closed as he contemplates his next move.

His move with this record was to be experimental, to push the boundaries of jazz forward. This was originally recorded in 1960 and released the following year by Mercury Records with the title Pre-Bird. (That title reflects the idea that Mingus hadn't yet listened to Charlie "Bird" Parker, who would become a great influence.) Producer Leonard Feather writes in the liner notes, "Unavailable for many years, it is herein reissued because of its historical importance."

It's important because it's unlike anything almost anyone else was doing at the time. John Coltrane and Miles Davis, both separately and together, would push jazz into challenging directions, but even they weren't doing what Mingus was. 

Mingus had already made his mark as a bassist, and now he was composing. Most of the tracks on this record are compositions of his own for a band that is big, if not a "big band." In addition to Mingus's bass, there are five trumpets, four trombones, six saxophones, three percussionists, a tuba, a flute, a cello, a piano, and even an oboe. Most of those unexpected instruments contribute to the Mingus originals, the final four tracks on side one, and the final two on the reverse. 

Mingus sets up an interesting contrast on each side as he begins with traditional tunes, including a tribute to one of his greatest influences, Duke Ellington (more on that coming), then finishes with his own songs which are anything but traditional. Mingus spoke often about his love of classical music and composers like Ravel and Debussy, and those influences are heard in these compositions which are jazz numbers, certainly, but are also orchestral in nature. 

On two songs he even enlists the services of a vocalist, Lorraine Cousins, uncredited except in Feather's notes, and her haunting vocals paired with the unorthodox feel of those tracks produce songs which are as unsettling as they are brilliant. I was listening to them one evening in the dining room when my phone pinged with a text from my wife who was writing in the adjacent office. 

"Do you mind using headphones? The music is kinda stressing me out... It sounds like a scary movie or something."

She wasn't wrong, and I'm guessing many listeners in 1961 (or 1965) must've had similar reactions. It's different, to say the least.

But let's go back to the opening tracks from each side. The record begins with "Take the 'A' Train," a Billy Strayhorn classic that I remember playing in middle school jazz band. Side two opens with an Ellington number, "Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me."

It all seems fairly straight forward until you look deeper at the track listing and put the needle on the record. Each opening track is actually an interpolation of two songs. Mingus has overlapped two songs on one track. On side one that means in addition to "Take the 'A' Train," you're also listening to "Exactly Like You." Mingus's arrangement overlaps the two songs, with the melody from one on the left channel (in your left ear if you're using headphones) and the second melody on the right channel. It isn't just genius, it's mad-scientist-genius. And the best part? For listeners who aren't aware of what's going on, it's just a song.

Considering all this, Mingus Revisited isn't just a record. It's the preservation of a moment in time when an artist pushed the boundaries of his chosen medium. Like any artwork described as avant garde, it can be disconcerting at first listen, but after spinning it almost every day for the past week, I've come to appreciate the challenging sections as much as the melodic interludes. It's all fairly amazing.

Finally, there was a surprise. On the back of the album jacket in the upper righthand corner, a message is written with a blue ballpoint pen in my father's elegant handwriting: "Demo for Sylvia." I don't know who Sylvia was, nor do I need to know. Those three words trigger the imagination and conjure a scene of my father sharing this music with someone else. Music, after all, is meant to be shared.

Side 1
Take the "A" Train/Exactly Like You
Prayer for Passive Resistance
Eclipse
Mingus Fingus No. 2
Weird Nightmare

Side 2
Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me/I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
Bemoanable Lady
Half-Mast Inhibition