Rob & Sue

I had the distinct pleasure of working at Jazz Standard, the legendary NY jazz club for a period of nearly 7 years to the date. One of my favorite experiences was working alongside Sue Mingus, a wonderful writer, intellectual, and widow of one of my musical heroes Charles Mingus. Sue, left in Charles’ vast wake, was no pushover! She ran the band with a vigor and knew the importance of hiring the right musicians for none other than “Mingus Music”. It wasn’t jazz. It wasn’t classical. It wasn’t anything but uniquely Mingus. When young musicians would approach Sue asking if they could audition for the band she, although diminutive herself, would ask in a towering voice, “Do you know Mingus Music?” If the cat said anything other than “shit, yeah!” or even waited a second and a half to respond, Sue’s answer was a resounding ‘no’.

Over the years, I began to know Sue quite well as well as some of the musicians in the band. Afterall, as the ‘maitre d’hotel’ it was I who doled out the drink tickets to the cats and put their friends/family members on the guest list. Sue was very thoughtful. She would always write handwritten cards and perhaps a little something that Charles had touched and had his energy inside. A signed copy of her book “Tonight at Noon” and an album, the last album with Eric Dolphy live in Amsterdam, was among these incredible gifts. With this business-like relationship firmly in place, the secondary and tertiary characteristics began to seep out. The dark humor. The secret stories. The gossip. The laughs! Sue was a vibrant individual and her spirit lives on through many, including me.

It was a typical sold out Monday night at Jazz Standard and the Mingus Big Band was swinging hard with all the right cats in place. Donald Edwards on drums, David Kikoski on piano, and Boris Kozlov on bass (using Mingus’ lionhead bass no less!) set the conditions perfectly. Boris came up to me on the set break and asked if I would like to sit in. It was so gracious of him to act as my mentor like this over the years and share his wisdom… Delighted of course, I acquiesced. Boris said he would start the last song with a big bass intro and told me to run up on stage quickly after his intro, trade places with him, and walk a blues. The end of the set was approaching and I was getting mentally prepared to take the stage, meanwhile performing the duties I had to fulfill like the head count in the room, making sure the servers knew about ‘comped’ guests in their sections, and other end of the shift work. The hand off of the bass went seamlessly as Boris exited stage left and I began walking with the cats. The night ended in typical fashion with the band playing “Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting”, one of Mingus’ classic compositions. After the set, as I always did, I went straight to find Sue Mingus in the crowd to kiss her hand and thank her for letting me sit in. She said, “Rob, that was simply marvellous. You sounded like…You… You sounded like…” Thinking she didn’t see Boris and me trade places I offered, “Oh, you thought it was still Boris?”

“No, Rob. You sounded like Charles.”