Spending some "Time" with Dave Brubeck, to end the year (1959, 1961, 1966)

And yep, it's SGTG breaktime once again. Thanks for all your comments, and for enjoying all the music.  As to where this blog goes from here, I think it'll definitely just be occasional posts, when there's an interesting radio concert to share, or the results of a quirky charity shop haul.  The whole 'sharing a massive CD collection and writing about it just because I wanted to' thing that sparked this off is pretty much done & dusted now, and has been hugely satisfying.  Thanks everyone for being part of it.

To leave things for now, here's a triple header by an artist I took far too long to give some serious time to, starting in the annus mirabilis of album jazz: 1959.  The Dave Brubeck Quartet had made a name for themselves in West Coast cool jazz over the course of the decade, and were becoming influenced by folk forms experienced on a tour of Eurasia, as evidenced by a 1958 album.

Their smash hit album a year later took the 'quirky time signatures' USP and just ran with it, creating indelible instant classics like Blue Rondo A La Turk and Paul Desmond's Take Five.  Beyond these standouts, the Time Out album contains absolute loveliness like Strange Meadow Lark and Kathy's Waltz, and my personal favourite, the effortlessly cool elegance of Three To Get Ready.

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The success of Time Out led to a handful of sequels, so here's a couple of them.  First up, from 1961, is Time Further Out - subtitled Miro Reflections as a nod to the cover art.  The album's running order is structured so as to progressively add more beats to the bar, starting off with a pair of waltzes and featuring another couple of pieces in 5/4, as well as the 7/4 of its best-known track Unsquare Dance.  Brubeck's dexterous pianism and the rhythm section's ability to play absolutely in-the-pocket regardless of the meter continue to be absolute joys, as is the breezy melodic sensibility of this coolest of quartets.

 

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The 'time' albums then concluded five years later with Time In, credited to Brubeck only on the cover but still featuring the classic quartet within.  This gorgeous record makes more sparing use of quirky time signatures, and after the full-tilt Lost Waltz that opens the album tends towards breezier mid-tempo tunes that hone in on the quartet's effortless interplay.  Not sure if it's because Time In was the least familiar to me of these three albums (that were found together in a box set), but I've been returning to it the most for sheer enjoyment.  And that feels like as good a place as any to leave SGTG for the moment.  Happy new year when it comes, everyone!

 

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Charles Mingus - Mingus Revisited (aka Pre-Bird) (1961)

...and SGTG revisited - hello again everyone.  Starting back up right where this blog left off as we're into Mingus' centenary year as of a few weeks ago, so perfect time to dive into his great catalogue afresh (all previous links below).  Today's album was originally titled Pre-Bird, on account of its music being composed prior to Mingus' exposure to Charlie Parker.  The LP featured a side of short but still intriguing pieces and a side of lengtheir tracks, the closing Half-Mast Inhibition rendered by a 22-piece ensemble conducted by Gunther Schuller.

In addition to his own writing, each original album side kicked off with an ingenious arrangement of two well-known contrasting melodies, based on similar harmonic material therefore ripe for interpolation.  We thus get Take The A Train combined with Exactly Like You to open the record, and later Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me against I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart.  Another highlight of the first side is the inclusion of two vocal pieces, Eclipse and Weird Nightmare, their off-beam and slightly unsettling melodies sung by the otherwise unknown Lorraine Cousins.  All in all, another pleasingly odd and very rewarding Mingus album.  Coming up later in the week - an end-of-life tribute to the great man, to continue marking his centenary.

"Pre-Bird" original LP cover, 1961

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Previously posted at SGTG:

East Coasting
Jazz Portraits: Mingus In Wonderland 

Mingus Ah Um & Mingus Dynasty 
Oh Yeah

Tijuana Moods
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music

Mingus Moves
Changes One & Two
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  

The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Another break, plus Mingus '59

Time for SGTG to take another break.  Will probably be back in the Spring like last year, and more than likely feature fewer posts each month - still enjoying the blog, but to be honest I'm just running out of stuff I want to post at the moment.  That may change again in future years, will see how things go.  And of course, thanks again for all your comments - that's what really makes SGTG a pleasure to do.  For now, happy new year to you all when it comes, hope it's a good one.  Here's some top-drawer Mingus to play out 2021.

Mingus Ah Um became Charles Mingus' Columbia debut in October 1959, having been recorded in May of that year.  The album's become such a cornerstone-classic in retrospect it's difficult to think what to actually write about it, other than it's a beautifully-composed and brilliantly-played synthesis of all Mingus' influences leading up to this watershed point in his career.  Formative influences of gospel electrify the joyous Better Git It In Your Soul; Duke Ellington, Lester Young and Jelly Roll Morton are paid tributes, and Mingus' composing and arranging talents make every single track a classic.

Widely regarded as a companion piece to Mingus Ah Um, and even bundled together in a 2-CD remastered edition at one point, Mingus Dynasty was recorded shortly after the release of Ah Um and came out in the spring of 1960.  If the opening Slop sounds like a variation on Better Git It In Your Soul, that's exactly what was commissioned of Mingus (by a TV show) for the tune, and it kicks off the album in fine gospel rave-up style.  Elsewhere, Mingus' compositional skill continues to flourish in striking pieces like Diane and Far Wells, Mill Valley, and his debt to Duke is made even more explicit in fine renderings of Mood Indigo and Things Ain't What They Used To Be.

 

Mingus Ah Um link

Mingus Dynasty link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

East Coasting
Jazz Portraits: Mingus In Wonderland 
Oh Yeah

Tijuana Moods
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music

Mingus Moves
Changes One & Two
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  

The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Charles Mingus - East Coasting (1957)

Early Mingus with a small but perfectly-chosen group, and five top-notch compositions by the man himself topped off with a rendition of Memories Of You.  East Coasting is a gorgeous, accessible album, not least with Bill Evans behind the keys, and the mellow moments of this record are particularly enjoyable - the lengthy take of Celia is probably my highlight.  There are moments that cook and swing too, in the lengthy quick-slow arrangement of West Coast Ghost and the breezy title track.  Defintely deserves to be as celebrated as the better-known, major label entries in Mingus' catalogue.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Jazz Portraits: Mingus In Wonderland 
Oh Yeah

Tijuana Moods
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music

Mingus Moves
Changes One & Two
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  

The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Charles Mingus - TIjuana Moods (rec. 1957, rel. 1962)

A nice bit of summery Mingus, inspired by a trip to Tijuana and recorded in July-August 1957, but due to contractual/financial complications the recording went unreleased by RCA until five years later.  After a swinging opener in Dizzy Moods, inspired by the titular figure's Woody 'N You, the music starts to take a more explicitly Mexican turn with the castanet-led Ysabel's Table Dance for an exhilarating ten minutes.  

 

The album's second half kicks off with the brief but complex Tijuana Gift Shop with its memorable ducking and weaving melody, then another lengthy track follows.  Los Mariachis features Mingus calling out the way through a bluesy introduction (which will be returned to), then more Latin-inflected melodies and rhythms fill out the subsequent sections to give another highlight to the album.  To close, we get a gorgeous rendition of Ted Grouya's jazz standard Flamingo.  A cracking early Mingus album that deserves to be just as celebrated as its better-known siblings.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Jazz Portraits: Mingus In Wonderland 
Oh Yeah  
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music

Mingus Moves
Changes One & Two
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  

The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross - The Hottest New Group In Jazz (1959)

Picked up this cracking little vocal jazz album following a recent binge of the Fargo TV series.  Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross started working together in 1957 and quickly became a successful "vocalese" trio.  Per this definition, their agile voices were able to imitate jazz instrumentation with snappy, witty lyrics, and combined with boppish small-group backing made this 28-minute record a perfectly-formed winner.  

 

Not a note is wasted in the succinct running time, and every song is good, whether putting lyrics to popular jazz tunes or in material fully penned by members of the trio.  One teenage fan up in Saskatchewan was so influenced by the record - "I considered that album to be my Beatles. I learned every song off of it" - that she later returned the favour by covering two songs from it on her own albums: Annie Ross' Twisted on Court & Spark, and Edison/Hendricks' Centrepiece on The Hissing Of Summer Lawns.  

 

The original versions of those two songs are great to discover after being so accustomed to Joni's versions, and other highlights for me (among many) are the languid Moanin' (used to such great effect in Fargo), Sermonette, Summertime... pretty much all of them.  Love this uplifting little treasure.

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Luciano Berio / Bruno Maderna - Electronic Works (1992 compilation of pieces created 1958-62)

Great collection of early electronic/ electroacoustic/ tape music by Luciano Berio (1925-2003) and Bruno Maderna (1920-1973), in the years following their joint founding of the Studio Di Fonologia Musicale Di Radio Milano.  After WDR Köln and GRM Paris, this was intended as a third resource in Europe for producing new music with innovative electronics and tape manipulation.

Over an hour of engrossing sounds on this BV Haast CD effectively gives us a short album's worth from each composer, starting with Berio and the jittering sounds of Momenti (1960).  The avant-garde classical singer Cathy Berberian (who was married to Berio at the time) is heavily featured on the rest of the material, with cut-up fragments of James Joyce (1958) and then in a lengthy exploration of more primal vocal sounds on Visage (1961).

From Maderna we get two sixteen-minute pieces, starting with Le Rire (1962).  It's a great immersion in electronic sound and fragments of laughter and chatter that might be my pick of the disc.  Lastly, Invenzione Su Una Voce aka Dimenzione II (1960) features Cathy Berberian performing vocal phonemes prepared by the German poet Hans G Helm.  All incredible stuff to listen to, especially if you liked previous Luigi Nono posts.

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Berio/Maderna at SGTG:

The New Music, Vol. 2 (scroll past big list)

Berio at SGTG:

Coro

Sequenza IXb

Michel Magne - Musique Tachiste (1959)

Pleasingly oddball half-hour of music by Michel Magne (1930-1984), who was best known as a French soundtrack composer, and for converting the Château d'Hérouville into a famed recording studio - its financial collapse in the mid 80s was a likely factor in Magne's suicide.  This album from the late 50s, charmingly illustrated by cartoonist Sempé, is now regarded as an early concept album: "part radical manifesto, part pantomime".

Drawing on jazz, modernist classical music and musique concrete, Magne took the album's title from the tachisme (spotism) movement in modern art, intending to create its musical analogue in "harmonies of colours".  Divided into six short pieces on the LP's first side, and a three-part concerto of sorts on side two, the former is more focused on odd sounds: echoing cymbalom, eerie voices and the vintage swoosh of ondes Martenot make up the opening track.  From there, orchestral sections and skittery piano parts are puncuated by more strange noises, prepared percussion and voices.  My personal favourite from these six tracks comes at the end, as the wordless vocal of Larmes Et Sol Pleurer soars upwards to become an ondes Martenot melody.  

 

The much jazzier Concertino Triple takes up the rest of the album and has a really neat vibraphone part, along with some Gunter Schuller-like orchestral jazz writing, a nice piano solo and occasional braying laughter and distant chatter in the mix. A really fun listen, and a real pioneering feast for the ears all round.

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Erroll Garner - Concert By The Sea (1955)

A legendary, bestselling jazz live album that came about purely by chance - Columbia had no intention of taping this September 1955 performance in Carmel By The Sea, CA by Erroll Garner's trio.  Garner's manager Martha Glaser just happened to spot an American Forces Network engineer making a recording during the concert.  She took the tape to George Avakian at Columbia, and little over a month later it was in record stores as an edited LP (a complete version would eventually be released in 2015).

 

The acoustics might have been less than ideal in the hall, and the tape sounds a bit spotty and low-fi, but as soon as your ears adjust there's absolute gold here.  Swinging through some classic standards, plus a composition for the occasion, Garner's rhythmic, melodic and chordal genius takes in his influences from boogie-woogie and stride piano forebearers and Latin rhythms to create absolutely joyous music.  Classical influences too - love his little Debussy quote in They Can't Take That Away From Me.  In terms of a favourite from the album - swelling and receding like the ebb and flow of the sea, Garner's take on Autumn Leaves is my standout track here.

Original LP cover, photo by Art Kane - image at top is a 1970s-era imitation

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Pierre Henry - Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Soupir - Voile D'Orphee (1987 compilation)

 

Couple of ear-bending slabs of early tape music today, courtesy of French musique concrète pioneer Pierre Henry (1927-2017).  Taking up most of this 80s CD is the 48 minute Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Soupir - it's in 25 sections but all runs as one track, so can be a bit daunting to approach, but it's well worth getting immersed in.  The 'variations for a door and a sigh', with a musical saw in there too, were assembled in 1963 from Henry using this small group of basic sounds, manipulating them on tape and with various effects, to turn a squeaky attic door into a veritable orchestra of different tonal qualities.

Skipping back a decade for the second track on the disc, Voile D'Orphee (Veil of Orpheus) is one of the primordial pieces of tape music that still sounds extraordinary today - it's like a proto-Nurse With Wound track, but dates back to a time when Steven Stapleton was only four years old.  Voices, orchestration and a harpsichord are twisted out of shape over 15 minutes of stunning, groundbreaking sound-shifting, to evoke the epic tragedy of the Greek myth that gives the piece its title.

 

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The Quintet - Jazz At Massey Hall (rec. 1953, first 12" LP release 1956)

Recordings from a bop dream team in concert at Toronto's Massey Hall on 15 May 1953, with some later bass overdubs.  Bird & Diz, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach - what more to say, really, about a lineup like that?  The audience might have been diminished due to being scheduled against a boxing prize fight, but this a heavyweight championship in its own right.  Six classic tunes give everyone a chance to land punches, from the opening swing of Perdido, a red hot Salt Peanuts where Gillespie's clearly having fun, to a lengthy Hot House where Mingus and Roach stretch out, and more.  An essential landmark in 50s jazz.

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Ljubica Marić - Threshold Of Dream (1996 compi, rec. 1958-1996)

 

Career-spanning overview of Yugoslavian/Serbian composer Ljubica Marić (1909-2003), whose style was significantly influenced by Byzantine church music.  Her earliest work is represented by the very last track on this compilation, a violin sonata written in 1928.

Most of Disc 1 is taken up by works in Marić's "Music of Octoecha" series from the 50s and 60s, inspired by the eight modes used by the Byzantine Orthodox Church.  Some of the recordings occasionally show their vintage (or perhaps inept remastering) in brief dropouts, so don't worry, it's not your headphones, but are all good enough to let this solemn, powerful music shine through, especially on the lengthy Byzantine Concerto.  The cantata that gives this collection its title is another highlight, using the fifth mode of the Octoechos and surrealist verses by the poet Laza Kostić.

 

Marić's late work is represented by the trio piece Torso from 1996, so titled as it was intended to be "reduced to its core".  Disc 2 then starts with what was the highlight of the whole collection for me, Songs Of Space for choir and orchestra, which takes its text from epitaphs found on Bogomil tombstones.  An orchestral work from the 50s and string work from the 80s round out this great introduction to Marić.  Recommended especially for anyone who likes Pärt & Górecki at their most invigorating.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

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Lee Konitz, Miles Davis et al - Conception (1956 compilation, rec. 1949-51)

R.I.P. Lee Konitz, 13 October 1927 - 15 April 2020

The legendary saxophonist Lee Konitz has died at the age of 92, from Covid-related pneumonia.  He was the last surviving member of Miles Davis' Birth Of The Cool band, and had a storied career in his own right as a distinctive, melodic player and improviser.

This great collection was issued by Prestige in 1956 to bring together some 78rpm sides and material from 10" LPs.  The first six tracks in fact are the entirety of "The New Sounds" by "Lee Konitz featuring Miles Davis", a 10" released in 1951.  All of it essential early cool jazz and bop.

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Miles Davis All-Stars - Walkin' (1957 compi of 1954 EPs)

An essential collection of early Miles Davis, from when he was newly cleaned-up and sounding fresh and vital.  This album paired two earlier 10" mini-LPs, recorded at two sessions in April 1954 with slightly different lineups.  The first two sextet tracks are bold, confident settings-out of his hard bop stall that would lead to milestone albums like, er, Milestones.  The title track might have been taken at increasingly breakneck speeds in concert, but here's it's at a perfect swagger, leaving the fast tempos for Dizzy Gillespie's Blue & Boogie.

The three quintet tracks from the other EP are both a throwback to cool jazz and a sign of things to come in Miles' mellower records.  The trumpet mute goes in, and an absolute Miles classic, Solar, is first up before the group relax into two great standards.  Early Miles Davis, just before the First Great Quintet, doesn't get much better than this.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Blue Moods
Bags' Groove
Miles Ahead
Sketches Of Spain
On The Corner
Agharta

Charles Mingus - Jazz Portraits: Mingus In Wonderland (1959)

A fresh, breezy and swinging live set from January 1959, captured as part of a series of 'Jazz Portraits' concerts at the Nonagon Art Gallery, NYC.  The resulting LP went through numerous album covers and permutations of the title, with this version opting for both 'Jazz Portraits' and 'Mingus In Wonderland'.

With John Handy on alto, Booker Ervin on tenor, Richard Wyands on piano and Dannie Richmond on piano, Mingus underpins the group in his usual formidable style through three originals and one bit of classic Gershwin.  The two tracks that bookend the album - the cityscape blues of Nostalgia In Times Square and the gorgeous Alice's Wonderland - were written for John Cassavetes' debut feature Shadows, but most of Mingus' music was apparently cut from the final version.  In between are a lovely take on I Can't Get Started and a spectacular blues rave-up, No Private Income Blues.  Enjoy the sound of Mingus kicking off one of the most golden years of his career in style.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:  
Oh Yeah  
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady  
Mingus Plays Piano  
Let My Children Hear Music
Changes One & Two
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Else Marie Pade - Face It (2002 compi of works rec. 1958-1970)

Danish electronics pioneer Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) featured early on in this blog with a great compilation of her work; here's another one.  Just three tracks on this collection, starting with Symphonie Magnétophonique, a 1958 musique concrete tape piece representing a typical day in 50s Copenhagen, from dawn to dusk.  Mixed in to this everday slice of life are subtle memories of Europe before the postwar peace, in sirens, screams and marching feet.

More of that later, but first the 43-minute centrepiece of the collection, a radioplay version of The Little Mermaid (1957/8).  It's narrated in Danish, but even for non-speakers there's a lot to admire in the pioneering backing track that Pade created for it.  Sampling distant sounds of music and concrete sounds to evoke the world above the sea, and processing sine waves and pure noise to represent the undersea world, Pade's soundtrack must've been pure magic to listen to when originally broadcast.  Reaching back into her childhood, when she envisioned fantastical sound-worlds from outside her room whilst ill, Pade was eminently qualified to conjure up a soundtrack like this.

She also had first-hand experience of the horrors of war to create the ominous memorial Face It (1970) that closes the album.  An incessant martial rhythm carries fragments of garbled speech, which gradually reveal their source and are processed further into distorted grotesques.  The narrated vocal loop, in Danish, translates as "We must face it, Hitler is not dead" - the final line, "...he lives on in Nixon" was censored by the record label.

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The Teddy Charles Tentet - s/t (1956)

Fresh from some inspiring times in Charles Mingus' Jazz Composers' Workshop, a session with Mingus and Miles Davis and some ambitious releases of his own, vibraphonist Teddy Charles pushed the boat out further when signing to Atlantic.  This January 1956 session took some inspiration from Mingus, some from Gil Evans' late 1940s work with Miles (Evans and George Russell are two of the arrangers here), and also from the likes of Stravinsky. 

All this made the ten-piece group's self-titled album highly sophisticated for its day, beating Miles to the punch by two years in the closing track's modal progression, and even looking forward to free jazz in The Emperor, Charles' most striking composition here.  All of the crack team of players are great here, with Charles himself best highlighted on vibes on Nature Boy, which also appeared on Blue Moods (link above).  Highly recommended.

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Harry Partch - The Music Of Harry Partch (1989 compi, rec. 1950-67)

Some more unique music from the master instrument builder and microtonal composer, Harry Partch (see link below for a late-60s CBS recording).  This compilation collects some of Partch's earliest recordings, mostly with his "Gate 5 Ensemble" - apparently often just Partch himself playing all the instruments in overdub - released on his own Gate 5 Records label.

The earliest recording here, from Partch's first studio on pianist Gunnar Johansen's Northern California ranch, is The Letter, written 1943 and taped in 1950.  The words were written to Partch from an old hobo friend in the 1930s, and feature Partch and some fellow players on his adapted kitharas and marimbas, whilst Partch sing-speaks the old friend's misdeeds.

Moving to an old shipyard in Sausalito in early 1953, Partch recorded his Plectra & Percussion Dances LP, of which Castor & Pollux is one of his relatively well-known pieces.  A re-recording of that one would appear on his first major-label recording (link below), as would an expanded version of his Windsong film score, appearing here in a 1958 recording (it opens the CBS LP under the name Daphne Of The Dunes).  While the CBS versions might offer a closer inspection of Partch's sound, the mono, lo-fi versions that appear here are wonderful to listen to in the way they capture his developing genius, recording & editing everything in his own studio. 

Relocating again in the early 60s, this time to Petaluma, Partch devised the series of 23 minute-long duet & trio features for his instruments that then combined by overdubbing into quartets & quintets - all of which comprises the wonderful, 35-minute And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma.  An engrossing, ever-changing kaleidoscope of odd sounds and rhythms, it's the definite highlight here. Like most of Partch's music, it could perhaps be seen as a sort of Western take on gamelan music - which reminds me, got a gamelan compilation for posting; will do that next week.

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Previously posted at SGTG: The World Of Harry Partch

Miles Davis - Blue Moods (1955)

An often-overlooked mini masterpiece of early Miles, Blue Moods was recorded in July 1955 for Charles Mingus' Debut label.  Four tracks in just under 27 minutes of cool, smoky perfection, Blue Moods has an interesting (and unique in Miles' catalogue) lineup that contributes to its mellow atmosphere: trumpet, trombone (Britt Woodman), vibraphone (Teddy Charles), bass (Mingus) and drums (Elvin Jones).

By 1955 in jazz, the 10" mini-LP was on its way out, and longer albums becoming the norm; this is likely why the original liner notes pointed out that the brevity of this 12" LP was an audiophile choice to experiment with wider grooves.  Perhaps also true is that only these four tracks were rehearsed and taped; the CD excuses the runtime by stating that no bonus material was available to pad it out.  In any case, Blue Moods suits its length just fine, letting you give your full attention to four beautifully-rendered tunes.  None were penned by the participants, making this a pure exercise in song interpretation.

First up is the slow, crepuscular take on Eden Ahbez's Nature Boy, made famous by Nat King Cole, with Miles' mellifluous tone blowing gentle wisps over the not-too-wet vibraphone setting.  Next is the Broadway number Alone Together, in a great Mingus arrangement - more Mingus next week, btw.  The album's second half pairs the only slightly more upbeat There's No You with the movie standard Easy Living, which completes the hazy after-hours mood.  An absolutely gorgeous little record from start to finish, that deserves much greater recognition in Miles' lengthy discography.

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Les Troubadours Du Roi Baudouin - Missa Luba (1958)

Like a lot of people, my first encounter with this African choral album was watching Lindsay Anderson's if... (1968), and being captivated by the 'Sanctus' piece of music favoured by Malcolm McDowell's lead character.  Following the film's release, Philips released it as a single which entered the UK charts.  The original LP, however, dated back to 1958 when it received a limited release, and subsequent reissues throughout the 60s, and the 'Missa Luba' itself was arranged by a Belgian priest in 1957.

Father Guido Haazen (1921-2004) became director of a school in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1953, and established a choir that same year, featuring 45 boys and 15 adults singing and playing percussion.  The first side of this album consists of seven traditional pieces, with the Missa Luba taking up side two.

Although structured like a traditional mass with the Latin text, each section is based on African folk forms.  The Kyrie is based on a Luba mourning song, the Sanctus and Benedictus on Bantu farewell songs, and so on.  It's beautiful stuff to listen to, with the Sanctus the definite highlight.

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