| Jazz Portraits: Mingus in Wonderland | |
| Type: | Live album |
| Artist: | Charles Mingus |
| Cover: | Jazz Portraits.jpg |
| Released: | September 1959 |
| Recorded: | January 16, 1959 |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 44:11 |
| Label: | United Artists |
| Producer: | Alan Douglas |
| Chronology: | Charles Mingus |
| Prev Title: | A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry |
| Prev Year: | 1959 |
| Next Title: | Mingus Ah Um |
| Next Year: | 1959 |
Jazz Portraits: Mingus in Wonderland is a live album by jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus, recorded in 1959 and released on the United Artists label in September of that year.[1] [2] [3] The original release was titled Jazz Portraits, and a subsequent edition was titled Wonderland, leading to the combined title of Jazz Portraits: Mingus in Wonderland.
Both "Alice's Wonderland" and "Nostalgia in Times Square" were originally written for the 1959 John Cassavetes film Shadows as part of a full soundtrack, but Mingus’ music was almost entirely replaced for the final version of the film. A partial reconstruction of the soundtrack was released in 2015 as the compilation album Shadows.
A reworked version of "Nostalgia in Times Square," with vocals by Honi Gordon, was recorded during Mingus' 1959 Mingus Dynasty sessions and included on reissues of that album as a bonus track titled "Strollin'".
Though never a major part of Mingus’ repertoire, "Nostalgia in Times Square" has since become a jazz standard, widely performed and recorded by other musicians.[4] Notably, jazz fusion trio Medeski Martin & Wood have long performed the song, usually as part of a medley with Sun Ra’s “Angel Race.”[5]
The AllMusic review by Scott Yanow called the music "advanced bop that looks toward the upcoming innovations of the avant-garde and is frequently quite exciting".[6]
All compositions by Charles Mingus except as indicated