I am reading Al Young’s essay on Mingus in preparation for seeing and hearing a presentation today at Stanford’s Cantor Museum on Charles Mingus in film, in preparation for seeing the Mingus Big Band (featuring my friend and former client Jack Walrath) Wednesday at Dinkelspiel (but most probably not also at Lytton Plaza Wednesday Farmers Market, alas). I love this essay. I do not know that much about Al Young other than a) he was a Stegner Fellow, b) he was California’s Poet Laureate and c) he had office space or a studio on University Avenue here for a spell. I am tempted to track him down and cajole him into the studio as a singer-songwriter. Also, I noticed in the book he had a Rupert Pupkin like habit as a teen of playing at radio in his home and that his call letters were WYSS, for “young sound studios” make believe — I am tempted to ask him, should we ever meet, whether he pronounced that with a long or soft “i”. (I pronounce my name like the hypothetical former case, to rhyme with “rice” “twice” or, and I probably overuse this example “nice.”) Further, I am curious about his comment about “Latin declension” and “Mingus Ah Um”.
Mingus a Fungus page 123 of Young
I was also meaning to quote verbatim from page 123 of that edition, which also features a memoir by Janet Coleman. Young is describing something about the impact of both CM’s writing (liner notes, memoirs) and meeting the man, Mingus, himself. He said that Mingus was a Hindu and thought about reincarnation and that this time-space coordinate (I am paraphrasing, badly), for example from April 22, 1939 to 1975, where either Al Young and or I overlapped with Charles, him more consciously than I, was like being a fungus that came to be. (Mingus, among us, a fungus — a fun guy!)
The lecture today actually features Loren Schoenberg of the Jazz Museum of Harlem (but not Lorne Eiseley who wrote about lungfish, I read in College). It is part of a multi-event tribute to the great musician, composer, bandleader and cultural guru in the traditional sense of the word as inspiration.
http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/event.php?code=REM3
I recall reading this August, 2005 feature in Palo Alto Weekly by Koren Temple:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2005/2005_08_19.poetmb.shtml
“As a mystic, a Hindu, Mingus himself would’ve understood that none of this had up and happened out of the blue. Like a blithe and beautifying fungus, Mingus mushroomed inside me, killing off forever the notion that music or anything else had to go or be or stay a certain way. For years, I was going to be snickering to myself over this freeing realization.
“It isn’t easy describing or, more accurately, trying to recreate those early, sappy adolescent feelings of adventure, or that heroic sense of hurt that jazz in general, and Mingus in particular, brought out in me. As we mature, I suspect, we mostly forget what it’s like to be new in the world. I agree with Kenneth Patchen in his “Journal of Albion Moonlight,” where he says that most people grow down, not up.” Amen, “Ah um” and on, brothers.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
This other link hopefully includes a photo of Al Young, presumably by then staff photographer Norbert Vandergroeben, who I first met as a Times Tribune stringer in 1981. Weirdly, because I on and off obsess about this topic, the same issue has an obituary for a man named Loscutoff, who was a fire man here and is the brother of basketball great (or I’m pretty certain) Jungle Jim Loscutoff, who at the time was said to be living in Andover, MA. I am wondering about arranging a pow wow for the three greatest Palo Alto basketball players of all time: Loscutoff (a former Celtics world champ), Jeremy Lin (of Paly, Harvard and Warriors) and my former teammate Kent Lockhart (Gunn, UTEP, SF Pro Am MVP summer league, All Australia First Team, of 3134 Greer and notably the Henry Seale single hoop court playground here):
Click to access 2005_08_19.paw.section1.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Loscutoff
Terry and I hung briefly with Mr. Loren Schoenberg of the National Jazz Museum of Harlem, who did an excellent job stuffing all kinds of understanding of Mingus into a short presentation that featured this 1975 concert prominently:
http://www.eagle-rock.com/product/EE390479/Live+at+Montreux+1975
Not to steal thunder too much from Jack, Charles, or Loren Schoenberg, but here is a link to Al Young’s excellent blog, which includes the news that simultaneous to me trying to steal Jack and Wayne away from Jenny Bilfield on Wednesday Mr. Young is giving a presentation at CCA (the former CCAC) in SF. Also, he has a presentatin on April 23 (day after CM’s birthday, please note) at JazzSchool in Berkeley:
http://alyoung.org/2007/12/28/mingus-mingus-two-memoirs/
So I did go back to Bell’s Books and procure a copy of Al Young’s “Kinds of Blue” which is unfortunately out of print (they have one more, dear reader, copy; signed even). But I could not escape (because it was “wrongly” filed with his fiction and not in the Music Section) without (and here I sound like Nick Hornby) bought: “Women on the Wall” which is overdue in Philly at a singer-songer’s muses’ in-box, by Stegner, and William T. Vollman’s book about Norse history, sort of in reference to the Norge couple on La Selva. Plus I bought the updated pamphlet on Palo Alto’s parks, which is triggering in me another post, or low post even.
http://alyoung.org/2010/01/02/al-youngs-backlist/
Saturday April 23, 8 pm
UPSURGE! AND AL YOUNG ($18)
» BUY TICKETS
Al Young
California Poet Laureate Emeritus Al Young performs with
bassist Dan Robbins. For more on Al Young, please visit
http://www.alyoung.org
UpSurge!
For over 20 years, Oakland’s UpSurge! has won acclaim for their unique fusion of eclectic jazz and courageous poetry. An ensemble that earns its exclamation point with dynamic performances that capture the soul, humor and off-the-cuff inventiveness of a cascading saxophone solo. — Andrew Gilbert, Contra Costa Times
Just for yucks I looked it up (and because Loren Schoenberg used the same phrasing in this presentation) and I had Mingus Amungus featuring Miles Perkins et al at Cubberley on a bill with Dave Ellis Quartet (on a four-part “Quantum Decoherence of Jazz Shows program also featuring Charlie Hunter, Will Bernard, Anibade (Ledisi), and Galactic) on April 25, 1997:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/listings/1997_Mar_28.entertainment.html
I will try to post proper on this but enjoyed the Mingus Big Band show at Stanford, especially the singing of Frank Kuubwa Lacy. The next morning I had coffee with Jack Walrath, Kenny Drew Jr., Alex Foster and Alex Sipinigin in their hotel lobby. Walrath, who was in rare form at the Q/A post-show at Dinkelspiel, recalling his skepticism over “another big band” when Sue Mingus first suggested it, after abandoning her “mingus strings” guitar project, felt that Wednesday’s event was one of their better showings.
allmusic dot come lists 80 credits and 10 leader outings for the Russian trumpet player Alex Sipiagin, plus he said there is one forthcoming this spring, on Criss Cross, out of Enschede in the Netherlands (coincidentally, our Sister City).
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/alex-sipiagin-p267645/discography
and I could not, perhaps due to the Peet’s, help but suggest a collaboration between Alex Sipiagin trumpet and Patty Spiglanin, guitar and voice, perhaps ala Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson or more to the point Jack Walrath and Willie Nelson:
http://www.myspace.com/pattyspiglaninmusic
I spoke to the Palo Alto planning commission recently and said that The Nevada Building, at Bryant and University, was a historic site because many writers and artists, such as state poet laureate Al Young, had studios there. The commission had already approved plans to tear the place down and replace it with something even taller and shinier.
My girlfriend Terry Acebo Davis, a nurse, artist and arts commissioner here, said she had a studio there for a while.
Similarly, I spoke to the commissions, council and editors here about turning 209 Hamilton back to artist spaces, on account of Nathan Oliveira having studios there back in the day.
I also have pecked out quite a few words and yammered on quite a bit about 456 University, which some feel would be better as concerts and films, whereas the people in charge are dead set to turn it into office space and retail.
I suggested even Palo Alto, despite the drops in literacy and common sense, might pick a poet laureate. Meanwhile we have a man we have picked to be our IT guy, whatever that means.
Mark Weiss
recently read Al Young memoir on MIngus
in Palo Alto