Hentoff on Mingus - Nat Hentoff's Liner Notes to Charles Mingus' Recordings by Steve Siegel [From the Archives]

  © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Hentoff never attempted to tell us how to listen to Mingus or what to hear or, … , tell us how to feel. What he did do, however, was to make us aware of the complex nature of one of the giants of twentieth century American music, which, for many, served to appreciably enhance the listening experience as we made the connection between a composer, his creation and his performance.” 

- Steve Siegel

With previous features on pianist Wade Legge, the Great Day in Harlem Photograph “Mystery Man” - William J. Crump, drummer Frankie Dunlop and vocalist Jimmy Rushing, Steve Siegel has become something of a staff writer for JazzProfiles.

Here’s his latest effort on Nat Hentoff's Liner Notes written for many of the albums by legendary bassist, composer and bandleader, Charles Mingus.

For many years LP liner notes, also referred to as sleeve notes, were the primary source of information on Jazz musicians and their music. Individual books about the music and its makers comprised a relatively small offering during the first 50 years or of Jazz’s existence. Thankfully, magazines such as Down Beat, Metronome and Esquire picked up some of the slack in the USA. [England, and the Scandinavian and Continental European countries also had magazines devoted to Jazz as the primary source of information.]

Steve has done Jazz fans a real service by creating a descriptive commentary on Nat Hentoff’s learned writings for Charles’ recordings and synopsizing their unique nature and significance in this feature.

© -Steve Siegel copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

“Nat Hentoff had many interests as a writer — both within and outside the music industry. He authored over 30 books as well as a myriad of articles for various magazines, newspapers and online sources. However, his 50+ year career as a writer of liner notes for records and CDs is one area of his distinguished career that, as a body of work, has been somewhat overlooked, though his over 600 sets of liner notes, written for not only jazz but for rock, blues, folk and classical albums were, collectively, among the best written and most informative of the liner note genre. 

This isn’t surprising given that the generation of music buyers raised on 1960s-70s pop and rock albums were fed a steady stream of rather vapid liner notes written by either disc jockeys or in-house record company public relations people who were well paid to tell a rather young and gullible buyer just how great the album was as well as occasional hyperbole about how wise and “hip" purchasing that record would make them. So, the work of those writing liner notes, talented or otherwise, was often thought of as informative at best and rarely as inspirational or thought-provoking. After all, was there ever a published set of liner notes that didn't heap praise on the artist or their music? 

The history of comprehensive jazz liner note writing began with the introduction of the 12” long-playing album, first introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, which gradually, over the next eight years or so, replaced the 10” record at all the major record companies. (Interestingly, Blue Note records was one of the last labels to switch over to the 12" long playing record—in 1956.) These new 12” records provided a rather expansive back cover which demanded to be filled with something of added value to the purchaser. Record companies utilized this space for liner notes as well as promoting other releases on their label.

This need for liner notes provided many talented writers with second careers. Among those employed to do so was a young Nat Hentoff who joined with other jazz critics, whose collective writings during the bebop and post bop era of the1940’s and 1950’s, helped to legitimize jazz as a true art form. Jazz was serious art and critics writing the liner notes generally treated it as such. In the second half of the 1950s, Hentoff emerged as arguably the foremost craftsman of the art of liner note writing for jazz albums.

In reviewing a cross-section of liner notes that Hentoff wrote for jazz albums, his most prolific and absorbing output was the cogent and well-crafted work he provided for his friend, Charles Mingus.

“… There are nights when Mingus hovers over his (side)men like a brooding Zeus making up the final scorecard for eternity. His own moods are unpredictable. When he is buoyant, the bandstand becomes a picnic ground in Elysium. When he is angry, the room contracts and is filled with crackling tension of an impending electric storm. At these times, Mingus’ bass begins to mutter like a thunder bolt on the way. This huge cauldron of emotions at the center of a band can be taxing to a sideman; but if the latter has his own center of emotional and musical gravity, he can survive—and grow.”                                                           

Without knowing the source, one might assume that this evocative and thought-provoking quote would be sourced from academia—perhaps an MFA thesis or a doctoral dissertation. Actually, this wisdom came from the liner notes of a record album which could be had for $3.98 at your local record store in 1963.

This example of Hentoff’s work appeared in the liner notes to Charles Mingus' 1963 album, redundantly entitled, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. This writing is indicative of the style that Hentoff brought to liner note writing, as well as displaying his willingness to do a deep dive into the human element of music making. On many albums, Hentoff's notes are so well written as to occasionally qualitatively transcend the music within the record jacket. 

“Mingus is verbally articulate as well, and it's illuminating to follow the one immovable, uncompromising line of continuity that connects his development through the years—the line of personal and musical integrity and relentless self-searching. He may have a reputation for being an Avant- garde composer but he knows where he's come from.”

From: The Clown - 1957

Hentoff’s style of writing liner notes was rather unencumbered by the need to show off his knowledge of music. Hentoff was not a trained musician and showed little desire to unlock the technical mysteries of the music he was so passionate about. In many ways this freed him to write liner notes which dug into the artist and their aesthetic make-up.

As previously stated, his liner notes (as well as those of others), helped to legitimize jazz as an art form. He did this not by asserting in bold proclamations that the albums we were holding in our hands were terribly important because, as other writers were quick to state, they were examples of “America's only native art form,” or even by proving their importance through a musical analysis of what we were about to hear. Instead, Hentoff often accomplished this through serving as our personal escort through the mind of the artist who created the music, offering up a rich, multilayered understanding of the contextual socio-economic factors and the uniquely human traits of the artist. In the process he demonstrated how these factors melded together to create art. This dynamic approach served to humanize the artist and their art and in doing so encouraged the listener to further explore their music.

As an 18-year-old, new to the mysteries of jazz and eager to learn more about the music and its practitioners, I would devour liner notes in an effort to fully grasp why the music stirred such deep emotions in me. Many of the notes that I found to be particularly informative were signed by some guy named Nat Hentoff. As my modest record collection expanded, and even though I was struggling to understand the music and its powerful hold on my emotions, I sensed in Hentoff's writings that I was being moved not by the rather ephemeral and “guilty pleasure" emotions of the rock and pop that many of my generation were listening to, but by something that burrowed deeper into my soul. In retrospect, this was my first inkling of what the power of art to move one's emotions felt like. I now realized that the music produced by Ellington, Monk, Davis and Coltrane was indeed very special. I furthermore recognized that I had found something unique, something that was very adult, possessing magical qualities; something that I felt made me a rather special consumer of music among my teenage peers. 

Most importantly, I realized that I wasn't just a poser trying to set myself apart as a young sophisticate. There was a basis-in-fact for my musical choices.

I further realized that Hentoff's liner notes were but an aperitif—so much more remained to be learned about the music's practitioners, history and musical structure.

It was at this point that I became aware of Charles Mingus and realized the connection between his albums and Hentoff's liner notes.

“Charles Mingus' Workshop is fueled by his motions. These are not primarily exercises in form or attempts at "absolute music."  All of Mingus' writing is forcefully intended, as is his playing, to tell a story. For Mingus, music is his primary, essential means of communication with others. He tells in his work of his fears, his loves, his inflammable conflicts, his night-to-night battle to find and be himself.”  From: East Coasting- 1957

Hentoff was very close to Mingus and knew and understood this complex person as well as any jazz critic ever did. Because of this close relationship, Hentoff could do, in his liner notes, what he did best—view his subject more through a socio-psychological prism than through musical analysis or biography. This approach yielded some of his best work in the medium of liner note writing.

A clue as to why Hentoff, the non-musician, avoided the temptation to venture onto the slippery slope of opining about the technical nature of a performance as other jazz critics and liner note writers such as Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler did — both of whom were trained on an instrument — can be found in a story that Hentoff told in a Jazztimes interview:

“My daughter Miranda said to me once when she was hitting the clubs as a pianist and vocalist; she’s now mostly a teacher and composer, “You don’t know music technically. How come you can affect somebody’s living?” That bothered me a lot. I was walking down the street where I live and I saw Gil Evans coming toward me. I knew Gil when he was in Claude Thornhill’s band and I got to know him during the Miles Davis session of Sketches of Spain. So, I decided to make him my rabbi and I told him what was bothering me. And he said, “Look, I know musicians who know every note, every chord, everything. The only thing they lack is taste. I read you. I know what you like. I can tell whether you have an ear. So, stop worrying about that stuff.”

Hentoff's friendship with Mingus began in 1952 when Hentoff was working at radio station WMEX in Boston and Mingus was in town as a sideman with Billy Taylor. Hentoff's first interview with Mingus took place at WMEX. In 1953, Hentoff moved to New York City to become New York City editor for Downbeat and the daily routines of the aspiring bassist and the journalist often brought them together.

Eventually, their relationship evolved to the point that when the ever-insecure Mingus would place calls to friends at all hours and play the piano or an audio tape over the phone, explaining the work and asking those at the other end for their opinion, he included Hentoff as one of his sounding boards.

In 1958, when Mingus signed himself into the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital and, after a few days, discovered that it wasn't as easy to sign oneself out, he called Hentoff who arranged for Mingus' on- and- off again psychoanalyst, Dr. Edwin Pollock, to vouch for Mingus, which ultimately led to his release.

Eventually, Hentoff managed, better than most in Mingus' orbit, to understand Mingus' contradictions, insecurities, fears — which bordered on paranoia — and wide-ranging views on a myriad of other topics. Foremost being the views he held on the pervasive racism he faced as a Black artist in the United States, as well as Mingus' thoughts on the process of losing one's identity in a rather crazy world. 

“This album is another stage in that self-discovery, and in many respects, it reaches emotional depths in Mingus that are more revelatory of the marrow of his struggle than anything he has yet recorded. What turns this raw introspection into art is that Mingus is also a singularly creative composer- leader. He has hammered out an unmistakable personal language through which he stimulates, disturbs, and re- energizes his listeners more consistency than most contemporary musicians in or out of jazz.”

From: Mingus Oh Yeah- 1962

In 1963, Mingus recorded two of his most highly regarded albums: The Black Saint and the Sinner Woman and Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus. For the liner notes for Black Saint, Mingus shared the back cover with Dr. Edmund Pollock, his psychoanalyst. As was generally the case with Mingus, the motivation for this rather unusual arrangement was only known to him. Whatever the motivation, it is evident that Mingus left Pollock to his own means in structuring the notes. It appears that Pollock possibly had a record collection because his approach to writing the notes utilized as its model the rather typical annotated approach of listening to each selection and briefly offering analysis, the difference here being that the analysis that Pollock offers is not musical analysis but a rather bizarre selection-by-selection psychoanalysis of Mingus, the person, as viewed through his music. In essence, a music critic’s liner note format but with psychoanalytical content. It approaches a level of liner note parody which could only work on liner notes for a Charles Mingus album.

“In the first track of side 1, there is a solo voice expressed by the alto saxophone—a voice calling to others and saying ‘I am alone please, please join me!’ The deep mourning in tears of loneliness is echoed and re-echoed by the instruments in Mr. Mingus's attempt to express his feelings about separation from and among the discordant people of the world. The suffering is terrible to hear.” From Pollock ’s liner notes: The Black Saint and the Sinner Woman

Hentoff was employed to do the liner note honors for Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus.

In contrast to Pollock's work on Black Saint. Hentoff also offers his take on Mingus' state of mind but does it in a much more straightforward manner.

“Mingus's musical autobiography is a molten mixture of many elements. Among them are the daily exacerbations in the toughening of the spirit which comes from being a negro in this country. His music also addresses, however, the essential problem of every man — how does one live to the fullest of one’s capabilities?... Mingus has found a more self-liberating answer to this question than have most of his contemporaries. He is one of the most alive men I have ever known, and it is this commitment to living rather than only existing which makes his music so energizing and so insistently provocative.” 

In the early 1970s writer John F. Goodman began a series of far-reaching interviews with Mingus. In the instance where Goodman brings up the topic of jazz writers/critics it appears, from Mingus' response, that his relationship with Hentoff might have soured somewhat: 

Goodman: Nat Hentoff used to write some good stuff, used to know the music well, was very involved with it, very involved with you, I guess you were friends with him…

Mingus: Very good friends, I thought.

Goodman: I think that he writes for the Village Voice (on political and social issues) . It's not only bad writing, but…

Mingus: Well, I’ll tell you this, man, and you write this down, man. I'll tell you about Nat — he married a rich girl, a leftist. So, to keep her interest in him, and to keep his job as a writer…

Goodman: And she's a better writer than he is, incidentally.

Mingus: …here's a guy that leaves the guys and the thing he loves. And when you leave the thing you love, man, you ain’t got much left. Put that in the book.

Notwithstanding that Goodman, in this situation, hardly acts as an impartial interviewer, apparently Mingus felt betrayed that Hentoff, in a period where jazz was losing market share to rock music, had abandoned the sinking jazz ship. In actuality, Hentoff had, for some time, diversified his writings into areas well beyond music.

The reality here is that these comments were simply “Mingus being Mingus" because during the time that these interviews were being conducted, Hentoff continued to write liner notes for such late period Mingus albums as Changes One and Two and Cumba and Fusion.

Anybody who collects records will agree that liner notes, no matter how well conceived and expressed, cannot improve upon the quality of the music inscribed in the grooves of the enclosed piece of vinyl. That must stand on its own merits. But notes that complement the artistic expression contained within are, in essence, the nice big red bow that ties the experience together. (Think Bill Evans' liner notes for Kind of Blue.) Hentoff never attempted to tell us how to listen to Mingus or what to hear or, as Dr. Pollock did, tell us how to feel. What he did do, however, was to make us aware of the complex nature of one of the giants of twentieth century American music, which, for many, served to appreciably enhance the listening experience as we made the connection between a composer, his creation and his performance.

In an interview with JazzWax, Hentoff was asked how he wanted his writings to be remembered. His response: “You could hear the voices of the musicians in just about everything he wrote." Perhaps they were never heard more loudly than in his writings about Charles Mingus. 

 

Nat Hentoff "Presenting Red Mitchell" - Liner Notes as Jazz Education

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

In today’s tech-enabled world, streaming music services are ubiquitous and as such provide a handy means to listen to Jazz or other forms of music without the fuss of having to cue up records on turntables or insert compact discs into optical character readers [i.e. CD  players] or use any other devices per se to listen to music.

One click on an app installed on a cell phone or in a laptop and the listener can have music streamed either through speakers or wifi enabled earphones [buds?].

For a monthly subscription fee, users can refine their choices to gain access to particular styles of Jazz or specialize in the music of a favorite Jazz artist.

What’s not to like? Nothing is lost but the inconvenience of having to accumulate and store vinyl records or plastic CDs in jewel case covers. Playback machines are eliminated and convenience rules the day.

So, whaddya got to lose?

Actually, a great deal and not just the obvious information about track listings and timings, or information about the musicians involved in making the music, let alone the loss of the actual control that comes from owning something as opposed to leasing or renting it.

What’s especially tragic is the loss of information, opinion and insights that’s contained in many of the liner notes [LPs] or insert notes [CDs] that were a common feature of Jazz recordings on a fairly consistent basis from 1948, the year when CBS released the first long player record until 1998 an approximate date of the end of the heyday of CDs.

Of course, not every recording contained detailed information or critical reviews of the music in it.

But if you were lucky enough to buy one with annotations by the likes of a Nat Hentoff, Ira Gitler, or Leonard Feather, to name but a few of the enlightened writers who formed a part of the Jazz literati during the Golden Age of Jazz from approximately 1945 - 1975, then you were in for a real treat.

Because these writers grew up with the music and knew many of its makers intimately, they wrote from a position of knowledge and experience and their informed narratives became an informal history of Jazz, one that relied in large part on a compilation of primary sources including interviews with the artists represented on the recordings. 

Sadly, few of these important writings and critiques have been collected and republished in book form as anthologies, although we are fortunate to have a few by Leonard Feather, Gene Lees and Gary Giddins and a scattering by others including Nat Hentoff whose work is represented below as one example of the treasure chest of information contained in the liner and insert notes that accompanied many Jazz recordings.

These can be found in a relatively obscure first recording by Red Mitchell, a paragon of Jazz bass, entitled Presenting Red Mitchell [Contemporary S-7538; OJCCD - 158-2].

What’s so impressive about these notes is that they not only bring Red’s career into sharper focus but Nat does so by framing it against the entire history of Jazz bass up to 1957 [the year the LP was released] and explaining Red’s place in its evolution.

“KEITH "RED" MITCHELL is, I would think, a trial to the critics. I know he is for me. He is that rare musician whose work it is almost impossible to fault. The result is that reviewing him requires a continual shuffling of the more fanfarish adjectives. It is, alas, somehow easier to invent new verbal ways to underline deficiencies than it is to sound the timbals [an old fashioned word for kettledrums] of praise. I would like, therefore, to repeat what I said about Red during a 1956 Down Beat of one of his appearances, since I still feel exactly the same way. 

“Red Mitchell has become not just one of the better young bassist, but one of the most creative bassists in all jazz. He is consistently impressive in his solos, building with flowing, horn-like phrasing that is never stale and invariably reaching more satisfying climaxes. His tone is full and firm and he is clearly aware of the expressive virtues of shading. As part of the section, Red plays with swinging authority and unshakeable taste."

The subject of these enthusiastic reflections was born September 20, 1927 in New York City. For two years the family lived in Brooklyn, moving then to Fairlawn. New Jersey, where Red was raised. He had decided to become an engineer, won a Cornell scholarship, and had been at the school for a year when he was drafted. Up to this point, his musical skills had been directed at the piano an instrument which he explored more empirically than by rote from five to fourteen. He played piano in an Army band, but while in Germany, he traded fifteen cartons of cigarettes for a bass and his future was set (Karma, apparently, can even take the guise of nicotine.). Whitey Mitchell, Red's younger brother, is, incidentally, still playing that bass.

Red became an industrious autodidact [a self-taught person], working first on Bob Haggart and Simandl bass books. His initial post-Army experience was gained with a volunteer Gilbert and Sullivan camp meeting and a volunteer symphony. His first jazz gig was at the Onyx on 52nd Street for $15 a week opposite Charlie Parker. (This happened before Red joined the union, lest 802 starts to scan the statute of limitations .) "It was just like going to school," recalls Red. "We used to sit there every intermission and just listen to the band." His first union gig was in the winter of 1948-49 with [vocalist] Jackie Paris in Milwaukee. He later worked with [guitarist] Mundell Lowe, played piano with the Chubby Jackson [bassist] big band at the Royal Roost in 1949, then back to bass with Charlie Ventura, Woody Herman from 1949-51; and since 1952, he's been with Red Norvo, Gerry Mulligan. Hampton Hawes and other units, most recently heading the combo heard on this, its debut album.

SINCE RED IS THIRTY, old enough to have heard nearly all the major and minor modern bassists, his tracing of the influences on his work also serve, in part, as the outline for a history of modern jazz bass. It should be noted first, however, that Red feels he has been influenced more by horn men than bassists, although members of the latter confraternity have certainly helped shape him. Among the horn players and pianists he is especially receptive to are: Sonny Rollins, Bill Harris. Miles Davis. Dizzy Gillespie, Zoot Sims, Lester Young, Bobby Brookmeyer, Charlie Parker, Tony Fruscella, James Clay, Hampton Hawes. Al Cohn, Jim Hall, Jimmy Giuffre, Duke Jordan, Milt Jackson and John Lewis.

The early function of the jazz bass (and until the 1930s, most bass men were able by necessity to double on tuba) was primarily as a rhythm section instrument. By the mid 1930s, the function of the rhythm section components had become clearer and more integrated, and the bass had begun to assume a more substantial role, although it still was very limited as a solo instrument The paragon of flowing, swinging rhythm sections of the time was Count Basie’s and Walter Page was the bassist. "I guess the first bass player that really thrilled me was Walter Page," Red recalls, "even though I didn't know his name at the time. The first jazz record that really lit the light bulb for me was a Count Basie record . . when I was 16. And the rhythm section was the first thing I heard. I just fell right out "

But by the time Red had heard this Basie record in 1943, the radical liberation of the jazz bass begun by Jimmy Blanton in the late Thirties had already had hugely challenging, irrevocable effects on a phalanx of bassists a few years older than Red. "Blanton," as Leonard Feather notes in his excellent chapter on the bass in The Book of Jazz. "had simply shown that the bass was a melody instrument, that flowing harmonic patterns and melodic lines could be improvised on the four strings just as on a trumpet or saxophone and that with the genius born of painstaking practice it could be opened up to sixteenth and even thirty-second notes.”

As Red grew older, therefore, all the bassists after Page who influenced and impressed him were post-Blanton in their approach to the instrument. There were Oscar Pettiford ("I realized he was playing from very deep within himself and it was as real to him as expressing himself in words, if not more so"); Chubby Jackson ("I remember the excitement of that Herman band and Chubby"); Eddie Safranski ("I remember being gassed by his technique").

Red had arrived at the time when he first began to hear Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis — and Ray Brown whom he listened to while Ray was with Dizzy's small combo and then his big band "Ray got a real inspired swing with the groups he was with, and he also could solo, and in his solos, I heard the new music, the new phrasing he just turned me inside out. " Red also heard Al McKibbon's big sound, and Charlie Mingus sitting in at Minton's scared him. "I actually got frightened watching him play because I remember the way he went up to the top of the fiddle, and it wasn't even his own fiddle. It was Al's. And then he went across the strings, played all kinds of nice things. He was just walking, he wasn't actually playing a solo, although everybody was listening to him. Well, it was a walking solo. And he just played all kinds of good melodies way up there at the top of the fiddle where I very seldom even thought of venturing."

Among the others who walked into Red's musical consciousness were Nelson Boyd, the remarkably underrated Keter Betts ("another one of the exceptional guys because he could both solo and play rhythm"). Curly Russell ("great big sound and real good swing . . . one of the new bass players who could really lay down such a strong beat that no matter how experimental the horn players got, things never fell apart, it was always swinging"). Tommy Potter, whom he heard in Bird's band with Miles Davis and Duke Jordan in 1948 ("Tommy laid down some real beautiful simple bass lines that said a whole lot"). Red Callender (''his sound and his walking"). In 1948, Red met Red Kelly whom he admired ever since ("He's with Kenton’s band now and he’s doing for Kenton what he’s done for every band I've ever heard him with. He's just getting underneath the band and making it get up and walk").

When Red went to Milwaukee in the winter of 1948-49 with vocalist Jackie Paris for his first pro gig, he met one bass player who even before Blanton, had been a searcher into and liberator of the instrument "We played opposite Cab Calloway and I got to meet Milt Hmton. I remember being given a great big boost of encouragement by Milt, and in many ways, just knowing the guy and knowing that someone could play that well in all ways was encouraging. Milt is very exceptional in that he can do everything and do it well. He can bow, he can read, he can walk, he can play solos. He's really my idea of the kind of bass player I'd like to be, an all-around player." 

In 1949. Red heard another complete professional, the superb George Duvivier, who most of the critics through the years have inexplicably largely ignored. ("George just scared me to death. He was getting that real big sound and executing all kinds of fantastic things") As Red traveled and listened more, he heard Bob Carter, Teddy Kotick ("one of the first guys in our age group to start getting a real secure swingin time feeling"); Joe Carmen (now principal bass with the Dallas Symphony). Percy Heath ("every time I've heard Percy whether it's sitting in or working on a job or on record, somehow the feeling was always good ... it always came out making you want to get up and dance").

Dante Martucci, Kenny OBnen, Bill Goodall, Arnold Fishkind ("his solidity of time, and I think t(K). he's the only guy I've ever heard really make very successful use of a three-finger plucking technique"); John Simmons ("a very relaxed, swinging rhythm feeling"), the late Joe Shulman, Clyde Lombard.. Art Phipps. Russ Saunders, Chet Amsterdam, Slam Stewart, Doug Watkins, Wyatt “Bull” Reuther. Gene Ramey, and Paul Chambers ("underrated as a rhythm player, also the best of the new guys solo-wise").

On the West Coast, where Red has settled since December, 1954, he's been moved by, among others, Joe Mondragon; Bob Whitlock ("he always got a beautiful sound and he always played bass lines that said a whole lot"); Carson Smith ("for his swinging, good long sound and ability to unite maybe an otherwise divergent rhythm section and make everybody come together and swing"); Ralph Pena; Monty Budwig; Dave Bryant, Ben Tucker, Scott LaFaro ("I believe he's going to be recognized as one of the best in a very short time"); Curtis Counce, Eugene Wright; Max Bennett; Buddy Clark, and Leroy Vinnegar ("one of the best rhythm feelings of any bass player I have ever heard; one of my top few favorite bass players").

Coasts aside, there have also been Wendell Marshall; and, of course, Wendell's cousin. Jimmy Blanton ("whom I hadn't heard until I'd been playing a few years, which I think was very fortunate for me because I probably would have given up bass if I'd heard of all time And I say 'is' because even though he died, I still think he really covered the instrument more completely than anyone else has since").

The Mitchell-view of modern jazz bass history also includes his younger brother, Whitey, with whom he may finally do an album in 1958 and about whom New York musicians agree with Red that "he's a good strong rhythm player, gets one of the biggest sounds of anybody, can play very good solos," and is characterized overall "by a happy, swinging feeling."

"THE CIRCLE HAVING CLOSED for this survey of modern bass on Blanton and a younger Mitchell, there is the subject of Red's quartet on this album. One of the consensus policy agreements the unit reached at the beginning was to include it. their book a number of the "good jazz tunes written by jazz musicians that have only been recorded once and some that haven't even been recorded, and these we would use as the basis of our library." And originals from within the unit were added. A "unanimity of group spirit" was the basic goal, allied to (and it's not all paradoxical) "freedom of expression." "If," notes Red, "one of the members of the group wanted to do a certain tune, we'd do it. And we tried to feature each member as a soloist as often as possible on the job."

"We also," continues Red, "had some ideas about different ways of using the instruments. For instance, little counterpoint things between the flute and the bass (c.f. Rainy Night and Paul's Pal). And we found in the club that it was very effective if we played tenor and bass in unison on the first chorus which we do on Scrapple from the Apple. And we tried some things with drums and bass. We tried in two places on the album, Scrapple from the Apple and Out of the Blue, giving the drums an eight bar solo but with the bass walking. This has been tried before, I'm sure, but we had a lot of fun doing it." About his associates, Red begins "Billy Higgins, I think, is really destined to be recognized as one of the great drummers in the country.

swing. He has great imagination and is a wonderful group player as well as being able to solo. Lorraine on piano is, I feel, very underrated. She's a whole lot of fun to work with; and one of her great qualities is her overall spirit and good feeling, which goes beyond her playing. This in her music means that when she's playing behind a soloist or with the group, she's very good at getting that unanimous feeling and not playing so much as to inhibit anybody, but playing the right amount to just really get the thing going. In addition, she's a very fine soloist. As for James Clay, I think he could well end up laying the foundation for maybe the next step in jazz. He's already mastered at an early age the things that the rest of us seem to be wallowing around trying to get. He's able to express himself beautifully and fluently and his time feeling is very good. This goes for both his tenor and flute playing. To me, James is the best jazz flute player. He somehow gets more of a tenor feeling on flute. I really can't say what it is except it's a real strong jazz swing on flute. It's not at all pallid, it's just as strong as anybody on any instrument."

As of this writing, this Mitchell quartet is disbanded with Lorraine, newly a  mother;  James Clay called to Dallas to take an induction physical and Red surveying the economic situation for his kind of group in Los Angeles. Red feels, however, that the Los Angeles club situation is improving; and "I'm going to try to get together either this same group, as much as possible, or a group like it and try to follow up this album  with  in-person appearances." Whatever unit he has will have to first fulfill Red's basic jazz criteria; it will have individually and collectively “to say something . . . because to me this is the most important thing. This goes beyond experimentalism, funk or any other single aspect of playing. To me the most important thing is what you say. How you say it is very important, but I don’t think it’s quite as important as what you have to say.”

By NAT HENTOFF

December 2, 1957

Mr. Hentoff, one of the most widely read and respected of jazz critics, is also co-editor of Hear Me Talkin' to Ya and The Jazz Makers, both books published by Rinehart.

Notes reproduced from the original album liner.

Hentoff on Mingus - Nat Hentoff's Liner Notes to Charles Mingus' Recordings by Steve Siegel

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Hentoff never attempted to tell us how to listen to Mingus or what to hear or, … , tell us how to feel. What he did do, however, was to make us aware of the complex nature of one of the giants of twentieth century American music, which, for many, served to appreciably enhance the listening experience as we made the connection between a composer, his creation and his performance.” 

- Steve Siegel

With previous features on pianist Wade Legge, the Great Day in Harlem Photograph “Mystery Man” - William J. Crump, drummer Frankie Dunlop and vocalist Jimmy Rushing, Steve Siegel has become something of a staff writer for JazzProfiles.

Here’s his latest effort on Nat Hentoff's Liner Notes written for many of the albums by legendary bassist, composer and bandleader, Charles Mingus.

For many years LP liner notes, also referred to as sleeve notes, were the primary source of information on Jazz musicians and their music. Individual books about the music and its makers comprised a relatively small offering during the first 50 years or of Jazz’s existence. Thankfully, magazines such as Down Beat, Metronome and Esquire picked up some of the slack in the USA. [England, and the Scandinavian and Continental European countries also had magazines devoted to Jazz as the primary source of information.]

Steve has done Jazz fans a real service by creating a descriptive commentary on Nat Hentoff’s learned writings for Charles’ recordings and synopsizing their unique nature and significance in this feature.

© -Steve Siegel copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

“Nat Hentoff had many interests as a writer — both within and outside the music industry. He authored over 30 books as well as a myriad of articles for various magazines, newspapers and online sources. However, his 50+ year career as a writer of liner notes for records and CDs is one area of his distinguished career that, as a body of work, has been somewhat overlooked, though his over 600 sets of liner notes, written for not only jazz but for rock, blues, folk and classical albums were, collectively, among the best written and most informative of the liner note genre. 

This isn’t surprising given that the generation of music buyers raised on 1960s-70s pop and rock albums were fed a steady stream of rather vapid liner notes written by either disc jockeys or in-house record company public relations people who were well paid to tell a rather young and gullible buyer just how great the album was as well as occasional hyperbole about how wise and “hip" purchasing that record would make them. So, the work of those writing liner notes, talented or otherwise, was often thought of as informative at best and rarely as inspirational or thought-provoking. After all, was there ever a published set of liner notes that didn't heap praise on the artist or their music? 

The history of comprehensive jazz liner note writing began with the introduction of the 12” long-playing album, first introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, which gradually, over the next eight years or so, replaced the 10” record at all the major record companies. (Interestingly, Blue Note records was one of the last labels to switch over to the 12" long playing record—in 1956.) These new 12” records provided a rather expansive back cover which demanded to be filled with something of added value to the purchaser. Record companies utilized this space for liner notes as well as promoting other releases on their label.

This need for liner notes provided many talented writers with second careers. Among those employed to do so was a young Nat Hentoff who joined with other jazz critics, whose collective writings during the bebop and post bop era of the1940’s and 1950’s, helped to legitimize jazz as a true art form. Jazz was serious art and critics writing the liner notes generally treated it as such. In the second half of the 1950s, Hentoff emerged as arguably the foremost craftsman of the art of liner note writing for jazz albums.

In reviewing a cross-section of liner notes that Hentoff wrote for jazz albums, his most prolific and absorbing output was the cogent and well-crafted work he provided for his friend, Charles Mingus.

“… There are nights when Mingus hovers over his (side)men like a brooding Zeus making up the final scorecard for eternity. His own moods are unpredictable. When he is buoyant, the bandstand becomes a picnic ground in Elysium. When he is angry, the room contracts and is filled with crackling tension of an impending electric storm. At these times, Mingus’ bass begins to mutter like a thunder bolt on the way. This huge cauldron of emotions at the center of a band can be taxing to a sideman; but if the latter has his own center of emotional and musical gravity, he can survive—and grow.”                                                           

Without knowing the source, one might assume that this evocative and thought-provoking quote would be sourced from academia—perhaps an MFA thesis or a doctoral dissertation. Actually, this wisdom came from the liner notes of a record album which could be had for $3.98 at your local record store in 1963.

This example of Hentoff’s work appeared in the liner notes to Charles Mingus' 1963 album, redundantly entitled, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. This writing is indicative of the style that Hentoff brought to liner note writing, as well as displaying his willingness to do a deep dive into the human element of music making. On many albums, Hentoff's notes are so well written as to occasionally qualitatively transcend the music within the record jacket. 

“Mingus is verbally articulate as well, and it's illuminating to follow the one immovable, uncompromising line of continuity that connects his development through the years—the line of personal and musical integrity and relentless self-searching. He may have a reputation for being an Avant- garde composer but he knows where he's come from.”

From: The Clown - 1957

Hentoff’s style of writing liner notes was rather unencumbered by the need to show off his knowledge of music. Hentoff was not a trained musician and showed little desire to unlock the technical mysteries of the music he was so passionate about. In many ways this freed him to write liner notes which dug into the artist and their aesthetic make-up.

As previously stated, his liner notes (as well as those of others), helped to legitimize jazz as an art form. He did this not by asserting in bold proclamations that the albums we were holding in our hands were terribly important because, as other writers were quick to state, they were examples of “America's only native art form,” or even by proving their importance through a musical analysis of what we were about to hear. Instead, Hentoff often accomplished this through serving as our personal escort through the mind of the artist who created the music, offering up a rich, multilayered understanding of the contextual socio-economic factors and the uniquely human traits of the artist. In the process he demonstrated how these factors melded together to create art. This dynamic approach served to humanize the artist and their art and in doing so encouraged the listener to further explore their music.

As an 18-year-old, new to the mysteries of jazz and eager to learn more about the music and its practitioners, I would devour liner notes in an effort to fully grasp why the music stirred such deep emotions in me. Many of the notes that I found to be particularly informative were signed by some guy named Nat Hentoff. As my modest record collection expanded, and even though I was struggling to understand the music and its powerful hold on my emotions, I sensed in Hentoff's writings that I was being moved not by the rather ephemeral and “guilty pleasure" emotions of the rock and pop that many of my generation were listening to, but by something that burrowed deeper into my soul. In retrospect, this was my first inkling of what the power of art to move one's emotions felt like. I now realized that the music produced by Ellington, Monk, Davis and Coltrane was indeed very special. I furthermore recognized that I had found something unique, something that was very adult, possessing magical qualities; something that I felt made me a rather special consumer of music among my teenage peers. 

Most importantly, I realized that I wasn't just a poser trying to set myself apart as a young sophisticate. There was a basis-in-fact for my musical choices.

I further realized that Hentoff's liner notes were but an aperitif—so much more remained to be learned about the music's practitioners, history and musical structure.

It was at this point that I became aware of Charles Mingus and realized the connection between his albums and Hentoff's liner notes.

“Charles Mingus' Workshop is fueled by his motions. These are not primarily exercises in form or attempts at "absolute music."  All of Mingus' writing is forcefully intended, as is his playing, to tell a story. For Mingus, music is his primary, essential means of communication with others. He tells in his work of his fears, his loves, his inflammable conflicts, his night-to-night battle to find and be himself.”  From: East Coasting- 1957

Hentoff was very close to Mingus and knew and understood this complex person as well as any jazz critic ever did. Because of this close relationship, Hentoff could do, in his liner notes, what he did best—view his subject more through a socio-psychological prism than through musical analysis or biography. This approach yielded some of his best work in the medium of liner note writing.

A clue as to why Hentoff, the non-musician, avoided the temptation to venture onto the slippery slope of opining about the technical nature of a performance as other jazz critics and liner note writers such as Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler did — both of whom were trained on an instrument — can be found in a story that Hentoff told in a Jazztimes interview:

“My daughter Miranda said to me once when she was hitting the clubs as a pianist and vocalist; she’s now mostly a teacher and composer, “You don’t know music technically. How come you can affect somebody’s living?” That bothered me a lot. I was walking down the street where I live and I saw Gil Evans coming toward me. I knew Gil when he was in Claude Thornhill’s band and I got to know him during the Miles Davis session of Sketches of Spain. So, I decided to make him my rabbi and I told him what was bothering me. And he said, “Look, I know musicians who know every note, every chord, everything. The only thing they lack is taste. I read you. I know what you like. I can tell whether you have an ear. So, stop worrying about that stuff.”

Hentoff's friendship with Mingus began in 1952 when Hentoff was working at radio station WMEX in Boston and Mingus was in town as a sideman with Billy Taylor. Hentoff's first interview with Mingus took place at WMEX. In 1953, Hentoff moved to New York City to become New York City editor for Downbeat and the daily routines of the aspiring bassist and the journalist often brought them together.

Eventually, their relationship evolved to the point that when the ever-insecure Mingus would place calls to friends at all hours and play the piano or an audio tape over the phone, explaining the work and asking those at the other end for their opinion, he included Hentoff as one of his sounding boards.

In 1958, when Mingus signed himself into the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital and, after a few days, discovered that it wasn't as easy to sign oneself out, he called Hentoff who arranged for Mingus' on- and- off again psychoanalyst, Dr. Edwin Pollock, to vouch for Mingus, which ultimately led to his release.

Eventually, Hentoff managed, better than most in Mingus' orbit, to understand Mingus' contradictions, insecurities, fears — which bordered on paranoia — and wide-ranging views on a myriad of other topics. Foremost being the views he held on the pervasive racism he faced as a Black artist in the United States, as well as Mingus' thoughts on the process of losing one's identity in a rather crazy world. 

“This album is another stage in that self-discovery, and in many respects, it reaches emotional depths in Mingus that are more revelatory of the marrow of his struggle than anything he has yet recorded. What turns this raw introspection into art is that Mingus is also a singularly creative composer- leader. He has hammered out an unmistakable personal language through which he stimulates, disturbs, and re- energizes his listeners more consistency than most contemporary musicians in or out of jazz.”

From: Mingus Oh Yeah- 1962

In 1963, Mingus recorded two of his most highly regarded albums: The Black Saint and the Sinner Woman and Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus. For the liner notes for Black Saint, Mingus shared the back cover with Dr. Edmund Pollock, his psychoanalyst. As was generally the case with Mingus, the motivation for this rather unusual arrangement was only known to him. Whatever the motivation, it is evident that Mingus left Pollock to his own means in structuring the notes. It appears that Pollock possibly had a record collection because his approach to writing the notes utilized as its model the rather typical annotated approach of listening to each selection and briefly offering analysis, the difference here being that the analysis that Pollock offers is not musical analysis but a rather bizarre selection-by-selection psychoanalysis of Mingus, the person, as viewed through his music. In essence, a music critic’s liner note format but with psychoanalytical content. It approaches a level of liner note parody which could only work on liner notes for a Charles Mingus album.

“In the first track of side 1, there is a solo voice expressed by the alto saxophone—a voice calling to others and saying ‘I am alone please, please join me!’ The deep mourning in tears of loneliness is echoed and re-echoed by the instruments in Mr. Mingus's attempt to express his feelings about separation from and among the discordant people of the world. The suffering is terrible to hear.” From Pollock ’s liner notes: The Black Saint and the Sinner Woman

Hentoff was employed to do the liner note honors for Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus.

In contrast to Pollock's work on Black Saint. Hentoff also offers his take on Mingus' state of mind but does it in a much more straightforward manner.

“Mingus's musical autobiography is a molten mixture of many elements. Among them are the daily exacerbations in the toughening of the spirit which comes from being a negro in this country. His music also addresses, however, the essential problem of every man — how does one live to the fullest of one’s capabilities?... Mingus has found a more self-liberating answer to this question than have most of his contemporaries. He is one of the most alive men I have ever known, and it is this commitment to living rather than only existing which makes his music so energizing and so insistently provocative.” 

In the early 1970s writer John F. Goodman began a series of far-reaching interviews with Mingus. In the instance where Goodman brings up the topic of jazz writers/critics it appears, from Mingus' response, that his relationship with Hentoff might have soured somewhat: 

Goodman: Nat Hentoff used to write some good stuff, used to know the music well, was very involved with it, very involved with you, I guess you were friends with him…

Mingus: Very good friends, I thought.

Goodman: I think that he writes for the Village Voice (on political and social issues) . It's not only bad writing, but…

Mingus: Well, I’ll tell you this, man, and you write this down, man. I'll tell you about Nat — he married a rich girl, a leftist. So, to keep her interest in him, and to keep his job as a writer…

Goodman: And she's a better writer than he is, incidentally.

Mingus: …here's a guy that leaves the guys and the thing he loves. And when you leave the thing you love, man, you ain’t got much left. Put that in the book.

Notwithstanding that Goodman, in this situation, hardly acts as an impartial interviewer, apparently Mingus felt betrayed that Hentoff, in a period where jazz was losing market share to rock music, had abandoned the sinking jazz ship. In actuality, Hentoff had, for some time, diversified his writings into areas well beyond music.

The reality here is that these comments were simply “Mingus being Mingus" because during the time that these interviews were being conducted, Hentoff continued to write liner notes for such late period Mingus albums as Changes One and Two and Cumba and Fusion.

Anybody who collects records will agree that liner notes, no matter how well conceived and expressed, cannot improve upon the quality of the music inscribed in the grooves of the enclosed piece of vinyl. That must stand on its own merits. But notes that complement the artistic expression contained within are, in essence, the nice big red bow that ties the experience together. (Think Bill Evans' liner notes for Kind of Blue.) Hentoff never attempted to tell us how to listen to Mingus or what to hear or, as Dr. Pollock did, tell us how to feel. What he did do, however, was to make us aware of the complex nature of one of the giants of twentieth century American music, which, for many, served to appreciably enhance the listening experience as we made the connection between a composer, his creation and his performance.

In an interview with JazzWax, Hentoff was asked how he wanted his writings to be remembered. His response: “You could hear the voices of the musicians in just about everything he wrote." Perhaps they were never heard more loudly than in his writings about Charles Mingus.