Charles Mingus: In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts

Here, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is some seriously swinging, seriously rowdy Charles Mingus. Recorded approximately six months before his fateful diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) the bassist deploys a street fighting melange—trumpeter Jack Walrath, tenor saxophonist Ricky Ford, pianist Robert Neloms and his wingman, drummer Dannie Richmond—and takes on Buenos Aries with all his righteous force. A celebratory exclusive release for Record Store Day 2025, In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts is really about as hot, honest and full-blown Mingus as ever there was. And there is plenty out there (take Resonance's first Mingus The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's, 2022, for starters).

It says in the liners that  "Sue's Changes (Incomplete)" is an excerpt of performance from Buenos Aires on June 3, 1977. That may very well be the case, but this  "Sue's Changes" is a world all its own. It howls. It is street and seraphim. It is a barbershop and church. It calls, responds, cheers and caterwauls. Rushing on the partial success of the fusion-infused Three or Four Shades of Blue (Atlantic, 1977), Mingus takes to the road as he always took to the road: defiantly. The band responds in kind. In spades. Though he is a veteran of Motown, Pharoah Sanders, Roy Haynes and Eddie Henderson, the still-somewhat-obscure Neloms takes to the piano chair (succeeding Don Pullen) for a quixotic dance through Sy Johnson's "For Harry Carney." It is a concerted marvel that barely balances Richmond's chill sashay, Walrath's high-flying flashes and Mingus' taunts and exhortations. "For Harry Carney" slippery-slopes into a 22-minute free-fall take on "Cumbia &  Jazz Fusion 1." "Daddy's little baby loves diamond mines," Mingus growls at the band tightening around him, "Who says mama's little baby likes shortening bread; that's a lie some white man said." "Noddin' Your Head Blues" and "Three or Four Shades of Blue" are crazy, crazy good. Ford blows like King Curtis during a fabulously feisty "Fables of Faubus." 

Available as limited-edition three-LP and two-CD sets,  In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts is replete with photos, commentary and provenance from Zev Feldman, Brian Priestley, author of the definitive Mingus: A Critical Biography, new interviews with Walrath and Ford and a first-hand account by Claudio Parisi, excerpted from his book Grandes del jazz internacional en Argentina, 1956-1979 (Gourmet Musical Ediciones, 2019). In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts makes one wish Record Store Day was every day and twice on Sunday.

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