Umbria Jazz is the
most important and well known Italian Jazz Festival, that next year
will reach its 40th anniversary.
1974 was the second year
of life and program was rich and ambitious, spread on different towns
and including many
important artists as Gerry Mulligan with Mariam McPartland, Keith
Jarett, Horace Silver presenting two hopeful young artists: Tom
Harrell and Bob Berg, Antony Braxton, Sam Rivers, Sonny Stitt, the
Big bands of Gil Evans and of Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, and Charles
Mingus New Group.
This last group was a
kind of All Stars, with the leader, playing bass, there were George
Adams (ten. sax), Hamiet Bluiett (bar. sax) Don Pullen
(piano) and Dannie Richmond (drm).
In the following video
it's possible to appreciate the central nucleus of a gorgeous concert
of this group, performed in Todi on july 28, 1974 (not 1975 as
wrongly written on video; the town is clearly Todi and in 1975 Mingus
had only one date in Perugia with a little different group).
The three themes played
were:
- Flowers for a Lady (aka Angry Reds)
- Devil Blues (aka Stormy and Funky Blues)
- Opus 3 (aka Squeezed Strings)
This about half an hour
of exciting music, in front of an enthusiastic pubblic, is a great
page of jazz played by five excellent musicians. Unfortunatly only
one of them, Hamiet Bluiett, is still in life today.
