"Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" is the epitome of that ineffable quality of Afro-American music and experience. The funky, earthiness, blues-inflected wails and gospel tradition, and soul-soothing moments of utter joy and celebration of the Creator keeps this song together. Mingus, a product of the Black Church and the blues, returned to his 'roots' on this album and succeeded. Indeed, I recall reading in a biography of Mingus that on one occasion his 'blackness' was called into question by a dark-skinned musician. Mingus played the most downhome blues the brother had ever heard and nobody could deny that Mingus, part black, part white, and part yellow, could keep it soulful and funky like the best. I ain't into essentializing blackness, but Mingus brought it.
In addition to Mingus, my Wednesday evening has also brought back memories of early Sun Ra. His pre-synth music is actually among my favorite jazz, particularly the Chicago years. Sure, the music is more conventional and less 'edgy,' but it's far more listenable (no offense to free jazz!) and just as meaningful. Listen to "Springtime in Chicago" and tell me that don't make you nostalgic for Chicago or just a beautiful, simple day? But my jam tonight is "Space Loneliness," a blues expressing solitude with an undercurrent of joy. In fact, the blues is just as much about expressing joy as sorrow or melancholy.
With the numerous wails of John Gilmore's saxophone (he influenced Coltrane yet got little recognition), the funeral march-like tempo, and bluesy head, "Space Loneliness" feels like a whiff of fresh air in a stale room occupied by a solitary figure. Thus, to me there is perhaps some hinting at possible joy in the debilitating state of depression and loneliness. Indeed, perhaps the 'space' or science fiction part of the title aptly describes the kind of solitude we all experience at one point in our lives, feeling like objects in space without intersecting.
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