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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/85761
Description
Title
Me, Myself, and Mingus
Author(s)
Musser, Paul Thomas
Issue Date
2005
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Chip McNeill
Department of Study
Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
A.Mus.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Music
Language
eng
Abstract
"This study examines and compares aspects of arrangement, form, and freedom as an element of formal expansion in the quartet, quintet and sextet works of Charles Mingus and Paul Thomas Musser. The paper's first half focuses on selected works by Charles Mingus. Its first subsection highlights such innovative Mingus blues works as ""Work Song,"" ""Haitian Fight Song"" and ""Boogie Stop Shuffle"" in order to present some of the idiomatic features of the bassist's small group writing, including the use of imitative counterpoint, contrasting rhythmic feels, collective improvisation, bass ostinato devices as well as the general emancipation of the instruments within the jazz combo from their traditional roles. The opening section's final portion examines Mingus' use of ""extended form,"" in which the composer uses freedom as a formal device to expand the music's expressive possibility and often to communicate its programmatic intent. In this subsection, ""Pithecanthropus Erectus"" and ""Celia"" are examined as examples of this phenomenon. So as to place these musical examples into context, a brief biography and discussion of Mingus' two primary musical influences, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, also occurs. The paper's second half consists of an analysis of Paul Thomas Musser's arrangements and works for quartet (""Red Tango"") and sextet (""10--500 B.C."" and ""Nardis""). Connections to Mingus' compositional approach as it relates to texture and formal construction are elucidated as well as the existence of additional musical influences such as Persian and Indian classical music and the early fusion works of Miles Davis."
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