Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting

Jackie McLean and John Handy (alto sax), Booker Ervin (tenor sax), Pepper Adams (baritone sax), Jimmy Knepper and Willie Dennis (trombone), Horace Parlan (piano), Charles Mingus (bass) and Dannie Richmond (drums). From the album Blues & Roots (1960).

This album is the answer Mingus gave to critics who said that his ambitious and evocative music didn’t swing enough, so he returned to the earliest sources of black musical expression, namely blues, gospel and New Orleans jazz. The result is not as eclectic as usual, but it’s the happiest reply that Mingus could give, working with simple melodies and arranging multiple lines to be played simultaneously.

After this there could be no doubt that Mingus was firmly rooted in the basics. The entire album is played with ecclesiastical fervor that includes both the themes with a lush swing and the painful and distressed slow blues, and its the one that virtually defines his artistic legacy. The recording session was very disorganized, but maybe that helped to give the themes a sense of freedom and spontaneity.

Mingus begins playing the double bass while the other instruments are joining until they expose of the theme. The first one to do his solo is McLean with very fast phrases trying to even get out to the instrument’s range. Then Kneeper enters accelerating as much as his instrument allows. Parlan follows him a little calmer with a repetitive speech while the wind instruments gradually eat his land and Handy makes his solo with more understandable phrases than those of McLean and Kneeper. Halfway through his presentation, the whole group accompanies him by clapping their hands until they return to their instruments while Handy continues to play until it merges into a collective improvisation. After that, Richmond comes in performing a small solo until the group re-exposes the theme.