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Let's take a little test:
Neneh Cherry and Eagle-Eye Cherry are to Don Cherry as Eric Mingus is
to . . . ?
Yes, he's the son of that Mingus, the imposing, late jazz performer Charles Mingus. And yes, there are musical parallels in the Cherry family example. Eric, like Neneh and Eagle-Eye, has embraced a more commercial, and occasionally jazz-tinged musical persona. Produced by leading NYC tonesmith and avant-garde maven, Elliott Sharp, this isn't as "cutting edge" as you would suspect from such parentage (both from a family and a production standpoint), but it's a very satisfying blend of urban sounds, Jersey City boardwalk bar band, Van Morrisonesque soul, hardcore blues, and most strikingly, echoes of the great dada bluesman, Captain Beefheart. The third song, Roll With The Demons, is very reminiscent of Shiny-Beast-(Bat Chain Puller)-vintage Beefheart, not only from the herky-jerky rhythm and off-kilter Tepper/Reedus/Zoot Horn Rollo-stabbing slide (courtesy of Sharp), but most importantly, the searing, Beefheart-shredded vocals. The final song on the disc is Runnin', a song that you would SWEAR is Don Van Vliet, come back from the high desert of California to strike fear in the hearts of every listener.
But this is hardly a Beefheart tribute disc. The second song, All I Ever Wanted, could be an alternate Springsteen/Southside Johnny jam, and the song which follows Roll With The Demons, Exists In A Dream, is almost straight 21st Century blues that you might hear on a semi-hip American radio station. Take A Look At Yourself is a lament on matters of race in modern society, and it's as plaintive as a small gospel quartet chanting from a Mississippi cotton field in the middle of August at the turn of the 20th Century. It starts a capella, and then adds an angry bass and a marching snare drum, only to be augmented by lonely horns wailing the agony of a black race forced into society's little ghetto box. The piece invokes his parents' interracial union — exhorting society to see how the blending of cultures brings new magic to the world. McCartney and Wonder's Ebony And Ivory seems laughable next to this powerful, soul-searching lament.
Mingus has carried on father Charles' powerful bass tradition, with his grumbling and deep style and Elliott Sharp's savvy ear for sharp-edged guitar stabs and progressive soundscape combining for a most satisfying tableaux. The sorrowful cornet of Graham Hayes infuses the album with a sense of grief and dread, and yet is oddly uplifting at the same time.
The title track is just Mingus, his bass, and his voice. The opening lines say it all: "Young black man looking up at the barrel of a gun / Wondering what he had done / Wondering what he had done / Young cop getting ready to let the bullet drop / Even though he wasn't sure / Wasn't sure what he had seen / Too many bullets not enough soul." The song then segues into a wonderful Chicago-style blues number, Ball and Chain, featuring some great blues licks and Jimmy Smith Hammond organ fills from the talented Sharp. Mingus' throaty vocals rise and soar as he exhorts his lover to "Take that ball and chain away."
The album winds to a close with a spoken "version" of Charles Mingus' most famous song, Goodbye Pork Hat, which is the next-to-last song on the record. It's actually a release from the ghost of his father, a poem of the need for absolution, lambasting "Those motherfuckers [that] are still motherfuckers / Believing that it all should be theirs / Trying to make me a bastard / Trying to fade out your love of sweet Judy / Decorating your anger as juvenile, a joke, or some kind of eccentric behavior." He curses the "Slow ease and creep of that disease that stole the magical moves of the fingers" and he proclaims "Truth is, I can't continue till I let you go / I can't love fully till I let you go / I won't be whole until I let my hand fall free of yours / Truth is . . . Truth is . . . / Goodbye pork pie . . . goodbye . . . "
Congratulations my friend, you have broken free of the yoke and dominion of your father, and you have exorcised his ghost. Be free and prosper.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/eric-mingus/too-many-bullets-not-enough-soul/1793/
Meer Eric Mingus op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/eric-mingus
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