THE NEW SMOKER
Frank Tales: A Mingus Among Us can * nois * seur ( kan’ us sur’ ), n. one competent to render critical judgment on the qualities and merits of Cannabis.
By Frank Lauria
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hile recounting some tales from yesteryear I neglected to mention an incident that occurred circa fall ‘58. Young poet Ralph Pine was attending Rutgers and I was crashing at his apartment in New Brunswick N.J.. Our pal was a brilliant and fiery young lady named Barbara Long who was a prose writer with a few credits under her belt.
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he three of us had been the ones to discover the 7 Arts Coffee Shop and were faithful attendees at the weekly readings. As mentioned in past pieces, the customers at the Hell’s Kitchen venue were sparse but, lo and behold, one weekend we were reviewed by Show Business, the newspaper. Your reporter received a front page fourstar write-up but friend Ralph did not fare so well. Since I was used to getting panned from the age of six I wasn’t really sensitive
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to Ralph’s pain and was (our regular command surprised when he later center) we would actualdeclined to read any more. ly crash at his apartment. What could be cooler? owever... we were harles Mingus was going to start our cordial and showed own Literary Magazine! In those days self-pub- real affection for friend lished “little magazines” Barbara Long. He lived in were prevalent. Most a typical midtown New were one-shots, others York walk-up apartment like LeRoi Jones’ “Yugen” that entered through the had significant influence kitchen. Charles had a in underground circles. lovely blond girlfriend who Our friend Barbara Long looked like Lana Turner also had influence in lit- and was far less cordial to erary/ jazz circles which these three young interin those days were ar- lopers-especially Barbara. tistically intertwined. She declined to go along as we visited the 7 Arts then arbara called Charles went to a bar to discuss Mingus, the great bass our big project. Charles player/composer who was seemed very interested. He then regularly gigging at showed us his poem which a seminal jazz club called was titled “Bosoms”. The Five Spot. And yes... The poem went in part: Charles had an original poem for the launch- Bosoms / big ones, small ing of our yet unnamed ones / I feel them / as I see them... Zine. So the three of us set out for New York one We of course, were Friday. We would visit Charles Mingus, get the thrilled to have any offerpoem and after our Friday ing from the great Charles night visit to the 7 Arts Mingus. Remember this
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was still pre-rock when Jazz artists ruled. We all went back to the pad to record Mingus reading the poem on a home tape machine (mine) about the size of an airline suitcase.
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ut when we entered the apartment we were greeted by a bizarre sight. Charles’ lady had written “I Want To Die” over and over on the white kitchen walls, the refrigerator, and the stove. Somewhat in shock and awe Barbara and I made ourselves comfortable on the floor of a small den, while Charlie tried to calm his lady down. Shortly after we retired there was a knock on the door. It was Mingus. After a muffled conversation Barbara came back with the news. Charlie wanted to watch us make it. I declined.
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week later we went back to pick up the tape machine I had left with Mingus to record his poem for posterity.
Image credits: Left page Columbia/ Legacy. This page image of Frank Lauria from Cannoisseur.blogspot.com