Mainly Mingus takes a wild joy ride
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Page: D5
Section: Arts
Byline: Alex Hutchinson
Source: The Ottawa Citizen

There were no moans, only a few hollers, and not a single
"Hallelujah!"

Other than that, Dave Young's Mainly Mingus band did a pretty good job of bringing legendary bassist Charles Mingus's music to life for an enthusiastic audience at Library and Archives Canada yesterday. It seems almost counterintuitive to have a tribute band to someone as notoriously iconoclastic as Mingus, but Young's quintet succeeded in using him as a source of inspiration rather than simply an object of devotion.

Trumpeter Kevin Turcotte and tenor saxophonist Kelly Jefferson ably negotiated the sometimes challenging arrangements. Turcotte was most in the Mingus spirit, hooting enthusiastically when Jefferson's solos soared to particularly inspired heights. But Young's bass work held the band together through frequent changes in and out of Mingus's trademark triplet feel.

Their final tune, All The Things You'd Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother, was a seat-of-the-pants ride through Mingus's take on the Jerome Kern standard All the Things You Are. As the musicians darted glances back and forth trying to make sure they all stayed on the same page, they recaptured the immediacy and slight panic of Mingus's best recordings.