Mingus' Ghost Howls In NYC
By Daniel Okrent

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Need a wake-up call? Bored with music that's too familiar, too nice? Try the Mingus Big Band. You may never sleep again.

Devoted to the work of its eponymous inspiration, the MBB is, like Charles Mingus himself (pictured below), a force of nature--a hurricane triggering an avalanche unleashing a tsunami. Continents and conventions are crushed in its path. Conceived seven years ago by Mingus' widow, Sue, and led by the fine altoist Steve Slagle, the MBB gets nuclear every Thursday in a downtown Manhattan basement called Fez. Mingus' music--dense, kinetic, utterly sui generis--draws together a shifting group of 30 or so instrumentalists who somehow shape up each Thursday into a tight, driving 14-piece ensemble. It's a band whose members--ranging from relative prodigies like trumpeter Ryan Kisor to venerable Ellingtonian trombonist Britt Woodman--turn up for the sheer thrill of soaring.

So buy yourself a ticket to New York. And if you can't make it, then you'll just have to settle for one of the group's CDs, ideally the recent Live in Time (Dreyfus). Unplug the phone, alert your neighbors, and turn this one up LOUD.

--Daniel Okrent