Haitian Fight Song - Mingus Big Band - Jazz à Vienne - 2002

"Haitian Fight Song"
composed by Charles Mingus
arranged by Sy Johnson
performed July 11, 2002 by Mingus Big Band at Jazz à Vienne festival

Written by Charles Mingus in tribute to the Haitian revolutionaries, such as Toussaint L'ouverture, who established the first sovereign state in the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country in the Americas to officially abolish slavery, and the only country in history established by a slave revolt – the largest such revolt since the days of the Roman Empire.

"Haitian Fight Song, to begin with, could just as well be called Afro-American Fight Song. It has a folk spirit, the kind of folk music I've always heard anyway. It has some of the old Church feeling too. I was raised a Methodist but there was a Holiness church on the corner, and some of the feeling of their music, which was wilder, got into our music. There's a moaning feeling too in those church modes. Try a song like Dizzy's Woody n' You, for example, and make some changes. Fit a church minor mode into the chord structure, and you'll hear what I mean. I'd say this song has a contemporary folk feeling. My solo in it is a deeply concentrated one. I can't play it right unless I'm thinking about prejudice and hate and persecution, and how unfair it is. There's sadness and cries in it, but also determination. And it usually ends with my feeling: 'I told them! I hope somebody heard me.'" –Charles Mingus, liner notes for The Clown (Atlantic Records, 1957)

"I was always doing revolutionary things, things that would alert people" –Charles Mingus

Alex Foster, alto & soprano sax (solo)
Jaleel Shaw, alto sax
Craig Handy, tenor sax
John Stubblefield, tenor sax
Mike Sim, baritone sax

Kenny Rampton, trumpet
Alex Sipiagin, trumpet
John Swana, trumpet (solo)

Conrad Herwig, trombone
Ku-umba Frank Lacy, trombone
Earl McIntyre, bass trombone

Kenny Drew Jr., piano (solo)
Boris Kozlov, bass (solo)
Jonathan Blake, drums (solo)

For all things Mingus, visit charlesmingus.com