Clown

Didier Raoult, Éric Zemmour, J.-M. Bigard, Michel Onfray, Cyril Hanouna, Jacline Mouraud, Éric Drouet, Francis Lalanne… Quarante ans après Coluche et en pleine vague de démagogie mondiale, les Français sont-ils prêts à élire un clown ? Un candidat hors système, un outsider qui brise les codes et offre l’occasion de se débarrasser définitivement de l’ancien monde. Beppe Grillo a ouvert la voie en Italie, Donald Trump a marqué au fer rouge les États-Unis, la France aura-t-elle, à son tour, son champion ? …

The Clown was Charles Mingus' second masterpiece in a row, upping the already intense emotional commitment of Pithecanthropus Erectus and burning with righteous anger and frustration. With Pithecanthropus, Mingus displayed a gift for airtight, focused arrangements that nonetheless allowed his players great freedom to add to the established mood of each piece. The Clown refines and heightens that gift; instead of just writing heads that provide launch points for solos, Mingus tries to evoke something specific with every piece, and even his most impressionistic forays have a strong storytelling quality.

The Clown was Charles Mingus' second masterpiece in a row, upping the already intense emotional commitment of Pithecanthropus Erectus and burning with righteous anger and frustration. With Pithecanthropus, Mingus displayed a gift for airtight, focused arrangements that nonetheless allowed his players great freedom to add to the established mood of each piece. The Clown refines and heightens that gift; instead of just writing heads that provide launch points for solos, Mingus tries to evoke something specific with every piece, and even his most impressionistic forays have a strong storytelling quality. In fact, The Clown's title cut makes that explicit with a story verbally improvised by Jean Shepherd (yes, the same Jean Shepherd responsible for A Christmas Story) from a predetermined narrative…