Hands Up Those Who Saw Mingus ...

[Edward Thomas]

at the Flat Five (or was it the Blue Horn by that time?) in 1964 ... ?

[Gavin Walker]

It was the Blue Horn by that time and Grahame Humphries had taken over the club and renamed it. It was September 1965 with the same band that had played at the original Cellar (222 East Broadway in the rear) in 1961. Charles McPherson (alto), Lonnie Hillyer(trumpet) and Dannie Richmond (drums) and Mingus. Dannie only played two nights at the Blue Horn as he got busted (drugs) and rather than a a trial he chose to be deported so Mingus finished the gig without a drummer. It was tough on the horn players. Mingus next came to Oil Can Harry's in 1975 but that's a different story.

[Heather Soles]

Yeah, I saw them then. As I recall, a lot of the music that night was pretty outside. The night I went, before the gig one of the players was trying to put up a poster on the wall, but he didn't have any tacks. He was really high and kept on smoothing out the paper against the wall then standing back, and it would fall down. This happened over and over again. I guess the scotch tape, if there was any, was fuzzed over , but he kept looking at it mournfully and picking it up and doing the same thing again. It was quite funny.

There was also someone there (not sure if it was the same night) called Cecily Quiatt, the High Priestess of Pot. She was a beat poet and I remember her reading a poem about tripping around the countryside, like Johnny Appleseed, strewing pot seeds wherever she roamed.

[Gregg Simpson]

I saw him at the Blue Horn in 1965 with Danny on drums for the opening evening. Richard Anstey and I went together and the influence of that band especially the way Mingus and Danny worked together gave us a lot of inspiration for the coming years we spent in the Al Neil Trio.

Also caught Mingus at Oil Can Harry's in the mid 1970's.