I’m here, I’m here! Sorry, I forgot about the timezone difference between Stuttgart-London and Stuttgart-Warwickshire. And I was outside admiring the scooter with the 7-speaker Bose system and the 8-track of Autobahn still sitting in the player.
Yesterday was a day off for me. Yes, a few more trips on the Schwebebahn, then on to Düsseldorf, where Ralf had invited me for a guided tour round Kling Klang. It was very thoughtful of him - I wonder how he knew I was in the country? Or how he got my carefully-guarded email address? No such luck for the band - between Wuppertal and Stuttgart they fitted in a night in Frankfurt, sadly unchronicled.
As I said above, this album only arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I gave it a good Knosti-ing, but it’s still fairly noisy with pops and crackles. Perhaps unsurprisingly, since it’s the only one of these recordings that Discogs is sniffy about and labels as ‘unofficial - sale verboten!’ I see Paul’s has the word ‘stereo’ on the front, although I bet it isn’t - but it does show there are at least two versions of the cover, at least. So let’s load up the SL-10…
The SQ is OK, if unremarkable. Jaki’s piano suffers most. So Long Eric is up first. Clifford is terrific - he really seems to have loosened up during the tour - and Charles’ solo is lovely. Eric starts by beaming in a transmission of bleeps and burps from Planet Dolphy then slips into lightning legato. Towards the end Jaki backs him in stride style. It almost feels like one of Zappa’s exercises in xenochrocy. Charles and Dannie start a duet and - end of side 1. Oh well.
Aha - it continues as a hidden track at the start of side two - but only briefly. After a few moments, the theme and that’s it. Orange Was the Colour has a jarring edit into the solos, but Clifford goes for it again (he’s having a good night) and Eric alternates between lyricism and - er - Eric. Early fade again, but this one isn’t coming back. A pleasant Mingus/Dolphy duet is entitled These Foolish Things, but I’m not sure it really is. There’s just a brief snatch of the melody in the middle.
On side 3 Peggy’s Blue Skylight is fine, but sort of comes and goes - then Meditations begins and gets off to a rousing start with Eric going first. Then aaargh! end of side! But side 4 promises another 21 minutes…
…which seems to fall away halfway through, as (IMO) happened a lot on the tour. Whereas the Cornell version hit you with wave after wave, the European performances became contemplative and elegiac for the last ten or more minutes. I’m in no doubt that was an artistic decision on Mingus’ part, but I wonder why he thought it was an improvement. I see the Cornell version was a good deal longer too, at 31 minutes compared to 20-25. Perhaps it was the fortissimo sections that were taken out. I must go back and listen to it again to check my memory isn’t playing tricks on me.
On first listen - first half great, second half pretty good. Did you enjoy it,
@paulfromcamden? We need to find a bar in which to discuss it in great detail. Now, of course, I’m tempted to go for the CD called Stuttgart Meditations which claims to have extra material and extended versions. But as we are in the murky world of ‘unofficial recordings’ here, who knows?
That’s it as far as we can go, as listeners, sixty years on. The band has a final gig tomorrow in Hamburg, where - to bookend these posts neatly - the currently chart-topping, US-conquering Beatles had had a residency at the Star-Club only sixteen months earlier. However, no recording is known of the 29 April performance - as yet. So we must bid goodbye to Charles, Clifford, Jaki, Dannie and Johnny - and of course, sadly, so long Eric.