Astral Weeks (Charles Mingus album)

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Astral Weeks is an album by Charles Mingus. It was recorded live in Copenhagen, on April 14, 1964, in the "Old Fellow Palaet's Store Sal" *. The occasion was described as a "jazz workshop". [1] The performance was provided by a sextet of jazz musicians, lead by bassist Charles Mingus, from the United States. The music was originally released as a vinyl L.P. on the Moon label (mlp016-1) but the date of this first release is not well documented (see for example here). This L.P. is now a very rare item. The work was re-released in 1990 as an unauthorized compact disc, also on the Moon label (MCD 016-2). There may have been further subsequent re-releases. Mingus' Astral Weeks contains only two tracks: "Fables of Faubus" and "Meditations" (sometimes given as "Meditations on integration"), although the full performance of his group's music that day also included other compositions that are absent from the Moon release (see, for example here and also here). The relationship between Mingus' Astral Weeks and Van Morrison's famous album Astral Weeks is poorly documented. Two biographies of Van Morrison trace his naming of the song, "Astral Weeks" to a visit in 1966 to an artist friend, Cezil McCartney, who had a painting on the wall that Morrison described as 'astral projection' and inspired him to name the song he was working on at the time, "Astral Weeks".[1][2] It cannot be a coincidence that the two albums have the same title but who borrowed the name from whom remains uncertain. Some of the musicians and others that Morrison employed had worked with Mingus.

  • Footnote (*) Old Fellow Palaet's Store Sal: This is quoted verbatim but is almost certainly a misprint that has arisen along the chain of citation. The famous concert hall in Copenhagen (see for example the article on Victor Borge) is called the Odd Fellow Palæet, meaning the Odd Fellow Mansion or Palace. Odd Fellow Palæet Store Sal would presumably mean "The Store Hall at the Odd Fellow Palace".

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Rogan, Johnny (2006-05-04). No Surrender. United Kingdom: Vintage, pp.173. ISBN 9780099431831. 
  2. ^ Turner, Steve (1994-09-29). Too Late To Stop Now. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp.89. ISBN 0747518246. 
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