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.