Billboard : 8/25/1956
Score of 77

In his first Atlantic LP, Mingus departs from the strict composter-imposed discipline of his “Composer Workshop” series. There is more of a conventional “jazz” feel and more improvisation. However, Mingus sets down the basic harmonic framework and leads colleagues like Jackie McLean and J.R. Monterose rather far-out. The title piece, for example, is a jolting experience; its savage sounds and rhythm vividly conjuring up its subject. Sometimes this (and also his version of A Foggy Day) has an undigested, gimmicked-up effect, but it’s always provocative and of unusual theoretical interest.

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Army Times
Tom Scanlan : 10/20/1956

Pithecanthropus Erectus is the obviously precious title of what Charlie Mingus calls a “jazz tone poem” (Atlantic LP 1237). Frankly, I don’t know quite what to make out of this. Mingus, a superior bassman who is intensely interested in “way out” jazz composition, calls Pithecanthropus Erectus his “conception of the modern counterpart of the first man to stand erect – how proud he was, considering himself the ‘first’ to ascend from all fours, pounding his chest and preaching his superiority over the manimals still in a prone position.” Well, we start with this.

Jack Tracy, editor of Down Beat magazine, believes this to be “significant music.” Perhaps it is. But I seriously doubt if it can be called significant jazz because because of its very nature which is almost the antithesis of musical freedom of music freedom and self-expression, at least on the part of the musicians involved other than the composer. Indeed perhaps this record should be reviewed in Mr. Kahn’s column and not in this one.

Three other arrangements are included in the album. One is a standard, Gershwin‘s A Foggy Day, as it has never sounded before. This one includes a wide variety of sounds effects (whistles blowing, the clang of a cable car, a fog horn, a cop’s whistle, etc.). Mingus says “all these sounds make much music.” I wonder. I suggest you listen to this album and decide for yourself. Perhaps Mingus is right. In any event, he is musically courageous.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 10/13/1956

Charlie Mingus, the greatest bassist, as a kind of Dadaist. Mingus has for many years been experimenting, in his brusque way, with extended forms, fresh harmonies, and methods of giving jazz additional dimensions. He has not always been successful, but his work has invariably presented a humor, vitality, and studied recklessness that are, at the very least, provocative. Here, in company with Jackie McLean, J.R. Monterose, Mal Waldron, and Willie Jones, he offers three of his compositions and a standard, bedecked with his own inventions. This last, as well as the album title piece and a thing called Portrait of Jackie are semi-programmatic works. A Foggy Day in London is full of police whistles, simulated honks, fog horns, and the scrape of a ferry boat docking; the cacophony, at times, is dreadful. But much of what he has done is funny and it works. Pith. Erectus, which Mingus calls a “jazz tone poem,” depicts, in four movements (ABAC) the rise and fall of modern man, and again there are night noises and slashing dissonances, but there is also a haunting basic melody and much feeling. Love Chant, the final piece, is a serious exploration of extended forms – in this case, long notes played against a highly selective chordal structure – that is somber, complex, initially unpleasant to the ear, and challenging. The musicianship throughout is impeccable and Mingus’ notes on his music, are, for the most part, clear. One wonders, though, if such semi-realistic music – as much of this is – does not deny the very purpose of music. Highly recommended.

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Down Beat : 10/03/1956
Jack Tracy : 4.5 stars

The review of Mingus‘ latest might well be simply to suggest that you read Barry Ulanov’s column in this issue. Barry covers excellently the musical personality that is Charlie’s and underlines the basic fact about the man – that he is a person fiercely determined to play what he wants to and what he feels, and that there can be no compromise.

Thus occurs A Foggy Day, which Charlie subtitles In San Francisco because “I’ve never been to London.” It comes perilously close to being a burlesque, what with whistles blowing and simulated auto horns honking and boats scraping docks, but somehow Ming give it musical validity by portraying honesty in music the sounds he hears in life.

Jackie is a brief excursion by altoist Jackie McLean.

But the title composition and Love Chant offer food that will take far longer to digest than the time I had to review this album. Pithecanthropus runs close to 11 minutes. Mingus says in the notes that it is “a jazz tone poem because it depicts musically my conception of the modern counterpart of the first man to stand erect.” It is a powerful thing – sometimes gentle, sometimes savage, sometimes painfully mournful, and always absorbing. It is not for tender ears.

It is divided into four movements, the last of which attains a screaming intensity perhaps unmatched in jazz literature. You might be struck, as I was, by the similarity of the music to the life of Charlie Parker.

Love Chant is even longer, running to 15 minutes. It’s an excursion into extended form that comes off well, chiefly because of J.R. Monterose‘s probing tenor sax and Mingus’ bass, both of which set deeply moving moods. Pianist Mal Waldron and drummer Willie Jones complete the quintet.

It’s Pithecanthropus, however, that contains the most significant music, both written and played. It promises to become one of the most discussed recordings ever issued.

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Liner Notes by Charles Mingus

The Jazz Workshop recorded in this album is actually an outgrowth of an idea conceived some 14 years ago while I was attending Los Angeles City College. At that time the workshop was a classical one – musicians getting together to trade ideas, try new works, inspire each other. When I came to New York in 1951 it seemed to me that this closeness of working playing and progressing together, especially spontaneously, was lacking in jazz. In the summer of 1953 I had the privilege of running a series of “Jazz Workshop” concerts at the Putnam Central Club in Brooklyn which enabled various jazz musicians to get together to play new compositions written by themselves and other young composers. One such concert featured four trombonists and was the beginning of the outstanding “Jay & Kai” combination.

Because of the musical success of this Workshop, another idea was conceived and made a reality, in collaboration with Bill Coss of Metronome, Teddy Charles, John LaPorta and Teo Macero, and was known as the “Composers Workshop.” Although musically successful in many ways, it was my own opinion in retrospect that the idea, like the name, was not ideal because both left out “jazz.” A lot of good music was written and performed, but was much more planned than improvised instrumentally. I recall to mind an incident at a rehearsal where Teddy had left several bars open for blowing and we were all on him with “man, are you lazy? Write it out.”

I found out two important things from this serious of concerts. First, that a jazz composition as I hear it in my mind’s ear – although set down in so many notes on score paper – cannot be played by a group of either jazz or classical musicians. Secondly, jazz, by its very definition, cannot be held down to written parts to be played with a feeling that goes only with blowing free. A classical musician might read all the notes correctly but play them without the correct feeling or interpretation, and a jazz musician, although he might read all the notes and play them with jazz feeling, inevitably introduces his own individual expression rather than what the composer intended. It is amazing how many ways a four-bar phrase of four beats per measure can be interpreted!

My whole conception with my present Jazz Workshop group deals with nothing written. I “write” compositions – but only on mental score paper – then I lay out the composition part by part to the musicians. I play them the “framework” on piano so that they are all familiar with my interpretation and feeling and with scale and chord progressions to be used. Each man’s own particular style is taken into consideration, both in ensemble and in solos. For instance, they are given different rows of notes to use against each chord but they choose their own notes and play them in their own style, from scales as well as chords, except where a particular mood is indicated. In this way, I find it possible to keep my own compositional flavor in the pieces and yet to allow the musicians more individual freedom in the creation of their group lines and solos.

I have often been accused of being “way out” compostionally. True or false, my ideas have not changed – only my method of producing them. In this particular group it is something of an asset to have musicians like J.R. and Jackie whose styles of playing (J.R. from the Rollins school, and Jackie from the Bird school) are already familiar to the listeners. I could tell you, by way of explanation, that I have super-imposed scales within chords and replaced bars with “cues,” but their familiar lines played on my perhaps heretofore unfamiliar framework should serve to “explain” my ideas in extended form better than I can.

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Pithecanthropus Erectus. This composition is actually a jazz tone poem because it depicts musically my conception of the modern counterpart of the first man to stand erect – how proud he was, considering himself the “first” to ascend from all fours, pounding his chest and preaching his superiority over the manimals still in a prone position. Overcome with self-esteem, he goes out to rule the world, if not the universe, but both his own failure to realize the inevitable emancipation of those he sought to enslave, deny him not only the right of ever being a man, but finally destroy him completely. Basically the composition can be divided into four movements: (1) evolution, (2) superiority-complex, (3) decline, and (4) destruction.

The first three movements are played in an ABAC form by the group, the alto and tenor together describing the second movement; then each soloist repeats this form, telling the story in his own way. After the alto solo, the group again plays the original form, except that the third movement now develops into what I have called the fourth movement. The last movement is based on the third, but increases in tempo and intensity and reaches a definite climax, indicating the final destruction in the manner that a dying organism has one last frantic burst of motion before gasping in its last breath. This piece was chosen as the title of the album because of the width of musical visibility and imagination contained in the thematic material.

A Foggy Day. This is actually subtitled “A Foggy Day in San Francisco” because I’ve never been to London and have collected these sounds from the Bay Area. You might be tempted to laugh on first hearing – and a good, healthy laugh never hurt anyone – but on second hearing, try to imagine the tenor playing the melody as John Doe walking down Market Street to the Ferry Building, hearing the sounds of a big city on a foggy day – the rumble of truck, clang of cable car, scuffle of crowd, jumble of traffic, moan of fog horn, cop’s whistle, car horn, the drunk left over from the night before who just dropped his last quarter, and that damned twelve o’clock whistle that used to wake me up! All these sounds make much music. I have tried to reproduce some of them musically, and if you can see these pictures as you listen to the track – even to the ferry boat, amid the guiding fog horns, creaking to a stop at the docks (as reproduced by the bass) – then I have succeeded.

Profile Of Jackie This needs little explanation as it is a ballad from a series of musical paintings I have done of various people.

Love Chant This is an extended form version on a more or less standard set of chord changes. This form challenges the musician to create a line of long-held notes for the first chorus, to develop it on one or two chords (or rhythm patterns, scales, etc) and then redevelop the line on the out chorus. This is done using only one or two chords per phrase so the lines must be developed for a much longer period of time than is usually taken before the chord change. Eighth notes and quarter notes become half notes and whole notes tied to whole notes, etc. The whole success of extended form depends on the ability of the musicians to do this in soloing and also in playing counter or accompanying lines. For instance, against the chords of C minor 9th and F 7th, J.R. uses only one note for his opening six bars and, with only two momentary half-step variations, uses this one note for his entire first sixteen bars.

As previously explained this form allows for an unlimited freedom in blowing except for maintaining the mood indicated. I say “indicated” because extended form versions are never played the same way twice – the mood as well as the length of line on each chord depends on the musician playing. The mood is set by him, and the chord, in this particular composition, is changed only on piano cue by Mal when he feels the development requires it. The solo sections are based on a set of near-familiar chords, except for the bridge which modulates to the leading tone of the tonic in a minor key – then back to the original chord structure for the last eight “extended bars.”