Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
I’ve come to think of this post as one where you come for the music and stay for the conversation—so feel free to drop a note. The diarist gets to sleep in if she so desires and can show up long after the post is published. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Join us, please.
Good morning everyone and welcome to Thursday’s Morning Open Thread.
Good musicians (I’ve read) have a range they can tap into. This morning’s choice of Charles Mingus is someone whose wide, deep range even I can pick up on and appreciate. No matter my need or want, there seems to be a Mingus piece out there that will soothe my soul or scratch that particular itch. This week deserves a diversified approach: my love is visiting, work is so stacked up it really is funny (in a pathetic, feel-sorry-for-that-guy sort of way), mechanical things are failing at an unprecedented rate, we have to keep a side-eye on the D-Variant, and the weather has been unseasonably terrible on the whole.
Despite it all, this has so far been one of the best weeks I’ve had since the beginning of 2020 when the pandemic wasn’t yet a twinkle in your mother’s eyes. Hence the music that spans “the depth and breadth and height / my soul can reach when feeling out of sight / for the ends of being and ideal grace.” Times like these and I can’t help but reflect on what and who I have in my life—putting aside judgment and petty grievances for the moment—and come up feeling more blessed than any of Zeus’s children.
Take care all of you and enjoy this lovely day.
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From The Mingus Institute:
One of the most important figures in twentieth century American music, Charles Mingus was a virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader and composer. Born on a military base in Nogales, Arizona in 1922 and raised in Watts, California, his earliest musical influences came from the church-- choir and group singing-- and from "hearing Duke Ellington over the radio when [he] was eight years old." He studied double bass and composition in a formal way (five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and compositional techniques with the legendary Lloyd Reese) while absorbing vernacular music from the great jazz masters, first-hand. His early professional experience, in the 40's, found him touring with bands like Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory and Lionel Hampton.
Eventually he settled in New York where he played and recorded with the leading musicians of the 1950's-- Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington himself. One of the few bassists to do so, Mingus quickly developed as a leader of musicians. He was also an accomplished pianist who could have made a career playing that instrument. By the mid-50's he had formed his own publishing and recording companies to protect and document his growing repertoire of original music. He also founded the "Jazz Workshop," a group which enabled young composers to have their new works performed in concert and on recordings.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?