DESCRIPTION:
Nearly 10 years after its world premiere at Lincoln Center in 1989, Charles Mingus’ masterpiece “Epitaph” was performed in 1999 during the Holland festival. Considered the most important and prophetic jazz composition since Ellington’s extended works, “Epitaph” was composed by Mingus over several decades. After his death in 1979, musicologist Andrew Homzy discovered the missing 500-page score in an old trunk in the home of his widow Sue MIngus while cataloging the Mingus collection now housed at the Library of Congress. Constructed as a suite of 19 movements for 31 musicians, and running well over two hours, “Epitaph” is a history of jazz, encompassing musical forms characteristic of Mingus’s orchestral composition: echoes of Ellington and gospel, extended classical forms, abrupt rhythmic shifts, lyrical passages that explode into dissonant choruses, and high register solos underscored by ostinato refrains on basses and trombones. Adapted and conducted by Gunther Schuller, “Epitaph” has been performed at festivals and concert halls throughout the United States, and in all the major capitals of Europe. In Amsterdam Gunther Schuller directed the Trans Atlantic Jazz Orchestra of many american and dutch musicians. In his documentary dutch director Ger Poppelaars followed the rehearsals and interviewed Sue Mingus, Gunter Schuller and musicians as the legendary Brit Woodman. Meanwhile also The Mingus Big Band plays Mingus beautiful compositions.