Mingus in Europe Vol. 2 (1964)

Track Selecton: “Charlemagne” >

Artists

Johnny Coles (tp) Eric Dolphy (as, bcl, fl) Clifford Jordan (ts) Jaki Byard (p) Charles Mingus (b) Dannie Richmond (d) Recorded Wuppertal Townhall, Wuppertal, West Germany, April 26, 1964

Music

The music continues to be as good as Volume 1 – hardly suprising, same session.Clifford Jordan and Eric Dolphy on good form.

Vinyl

Within a few days of acquiring Volume 1 of Mingus’s musical  Griswalds do Europe tour, “Mingus in Europe Volume 2” simply fell in my hands on a sojourn to leafy Notting Hill. These German Enja label pressings are superb, offering fantastic tonal range and presence despite being wobble-board thin vinyl – giving the lie to “180 gm audiophile vinyl” hype. It must be in the engineering – that Vorsprung durch thingy again. Interestingly, this new Volume is Mono while its’ twin is Stereo. Quite different presentation.

Unlike parsimonious Blue Note, where two-volume records shared the same cover design, and the liner notes encompass both volumes to save a separate print job, Enja offer you a completely different sleeve to Volume 1, and a new photo of “Eric is God” Dolphy.

It is noticable that Eric Dolphy has a fanatical following among the Jazz Cogniscenti (beardy-weirdy tendancy). I noticed it first when bidding on a rare Esquire copy of “Outward Bound”. My guess in setting the snipe was so wide of the mark I am too embarrassed to mention the amount, but the record closed comfortably into three figures. Dolphy evokes lots of goatee-stroking and breathy “yeah” comments, clearly reaching the parts I haven’t quite developed yet. Like the goatee.