Jim Dvorak & Eric Mingus - This Isn't Sex

Jazz and poetry hybrid from Eric Mingus (voice, double bass) and Jim Dvorak (trumpet, pocket trumpet, voice). Recorded at Katz' Kitchen, London, 1999.

Pitched somewhere between Kerouac's beat ramblings, Archie Shepp's pornographic poetry and Gil Scott-Heron's spartan proto-rap of the early '70s. This is spiky, highly listenable stuff, and Eric's dad would've been proud. And Yuppie Status Symbol is the funniest piss-take of inverted snobbery I've ever heard. - John Lewis, Time Out

Here we have 15 recitations about life and (one must say) death. Some are spoken, others are sung and they are supported by Mingus's bass and Dvorak's emotionally charged trumpet. Mingus tells most of the stories and they show him to be a sage with a good hang on life. Whether it is story telling with jazz accompaniment or purely jazz and poetry, is unimportant. Both men have impressive family backgrounds: Antonin Dvorak died in 1904 and Charles Mingus Sr in 1979 but, odds are, they would have been appreciative of the differing messages here. Yes, even Chazz himself. - Barry McRae, Jazz Journal