In late June 1960, Charles Mingus had one of his famous faux meltdowns. Miffed at George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival over an ad listing him as one the performers (rather than the center of the universe), Mingus demanded a raise from his agreed-upon $700 to $5,000, a fee he'd heard Benny Goodman was getting.

When Wein explained that the $5,000 for Goodman was for the clarinetist and his 17-piece band plus blues singer Jimmy Rushing, who were performing for the entire evening, Mingus found himself face to face with the truth.

Rather than admit he had jumped the gun, he used the stalemate with Wein as an excuse to walk away from the Newport Jazz Festival and create his own rival jazz festival a few blocks away at the Cliff Walk Manor Hotel in Newport. To read my interview with George Wein on this showdown, go here.

Known as the Jazz Artists Guild, the musicians put on a series of concerts in Newport that were sparsely attended and went unrecorded. Part of the low attendance was a result of a riot, when too many young people showed up in the town without tickets to the main festival, hit the package stores for beer and booze and later forcefully demanded to be let into events. The police stepped in. To read my WSJ piece on the riot, go here.

So on November 11, 1960, Nat Hentoff, the music director of Candid Records, had Jazz Artists Guild musicians record in New York for the label. The result was Newport Rebels, a studio recording that came out in 1961.

This album has now been remastered for vinyl and was recently released on the newly resurrected Candid label. Also issued in the reissue series is Charles Mingus: Incarnations, an even more important remastered LP of alternate takes, some of which have appeared on past re-issues of the studio album, including Mosaic's The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus. However, one song, All the Things You Are (All), recorded in October, has never before been released and only recently was discovered on a tape.

In retrospect, Nat Hentoff's instincts proved correct: The music on both albums is top-notch and captures Mingus in his prime. The bassist's Mingus Ah Um album for Columbia, one of his best, had come out a year earlier to critical acclaim, and he was riding high.

The Incarnations tracks, in order:

Bugs
R&R
All the Things You Are (All)
Reincarnation of a Love Bird (2nd version)
Body and Soul

The pesonnel:

Bugs—Charles Mingus (b), Booker Ervin (ts), Charles McPherson (as), Lonnie Hillyer (tp), Paul Bley (p) and Dannie RIchmond (d)

R&R—Charles Mingus (b), Eric Dolphy, (as), Roy Eldridge (tp), Jimmy Knepper (tb), Tommy Flanagan (p) and Jo Jones (d)

Reincarnation of a Love Bird (2nd Version)—Charles Mingus (b), Eric Dolphy (b clar), Booker Ervin (ts), Charles McPherson (as) Ted Curson and Lonnie Hillyer (tp), Paul Bley (p) and Dannie RIchmond (d)

Body and Soul—Charles Mingus (b), Eric Dolphy (as), Roy Eldridge (tp), Jimmy Knepper (tp), Tommy Flanagan (p) and Jo Jones (d)

All the Things You Are (All)—Charles Mingus (b), Eric Dolphy (as), Jimmy Knepper and Britt Woodman (tb), Booker Ervin (ts), Charls McPherson (as), Ted Curson and Lonnie Hillyer (tp), Nico Bunick (p), and Dannie Richmond (d)

What's most enjoyable on Incarnations are the different musicians playing together—Eric Dolphy and Roy Eldridge, Booker Ervin and Charles McPherson, and Charles Mingus and Jo Jones. I, for one, would have loved an entire album of Mingus and Eldridge. What a great combination!

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Charles Mingus: Incarnations on vinyl, digital download and streaming newly remastered by Bernie Grundman here.

Newport Rebels can be found here.

Candid also has remastered and reissued on vinyl Max Roach's We Insist! in mono here.

JazzWax clips: You'll find the album in tracks with ads at YouTube, starting with Bugs here...