Library Rock's Backpages

Town Hall Train Wreck

Gene Santoro, The Village Voice, 6 June 2000

IN MID-1962, Charles Mingus made a deal with United Artists. He wanted to lead a big band, but he wanted to record it live, before an audience. That would take his Workshop shows, those exploratory onstage rehearsals that mixed open-ended materials and personalities unpredictably, one step further. People could see a recorded document being made in real time.

Total word count of piece: 1745

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.