Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus, Max Roach
Money Jungle

THE REVIEW

It's all in the cover: the Duke at the helm, Roach capturing every nod, Mingus behind, with the grim tremor of genius. Bizarre project, this "Money Jungle".

Duke Ellington, "the greatest composer of the Twentieth Century" (as more than one would say), the demiurge of the big band, decides here to accompany his piano with a double bass and drums. And that's it. A trio, in short. Charlie Mingus is the daring, more avant than the avant-garde, the highest of the lows, Max Roach is the icon of percussion. And Duke is the Duke, who at 63 years had already scattered jazz with a colossal variety of styles and expressions, both as a creator and as a performer. A certainly scalene, improbable triangle. Ellingtonian classicism, Roach's bop mania, Mingus's existential experimentation.

The place is a non-place, it's a post-be-bop, it's a before the free, it's alongside Miles and Coltrane doing it their own way. Let's put a bit of order, revealing the ending right now: "Money Jungle" is a very refined product, one that leaves you listening with your mouth open. It doesn't care about what happens around it, it doesn't want to change anything, nor be a "milestone". It's a divertissement, nothing more. It is also a crossroads of men. Roach and Mingus were friends, forever, both adored Ellington. Charlie Mingus in particular, an excellent pianist himself, defined Duke Ellington as a "piano genius". A meeting of unreleased and classics (like a stunning "Solitude"), the album is uniformly pervaded by the elegance of the Duke's pages, delightfully recited by the cast.

Essentially, this is what happens: the Captain seats himself at the piano, and everyone goes to school, Roach and Mingus intertwine like lovers' hands, rigorously improvising. As already mentioned, what results is magnificent. I won't labor over the description; imagine it for yourselves, but I can't leave without a special mention to track 2, "Fleurette Africaine". Here Mingus reincarnates Debussy, Ellington draws an ecstasy, Roach is so good he seems not to be there. And so on.