Monumental and yet fragmented

IT took 31 first-rate musicians and the conducting and narrative skills of Gunther Schuller to bring Charles Mingus’ “Epitaph” to the stage Wednesday at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The huge 20-movement work, performed for the first time in 1989, and on this occasion presented in an expanded version including segments discovered after the premiere, has variously been described as a “jazz symphony,” the “Gotterdammerung of jazz” and the most ambitious jazz work ever composed.

Hyperbole aside, there is a modicum of accuracy in each of the labels, in terms of the size and the ambitiousness of the undertaking, if nothing else. Mingus himself, according to his widow, Sue Mingus, often complained about having “written a whole symphony that was never performed”-- at least not before his death in 1979.

But neither “symphony” nor Wagnerian opera came to mind during the performance of the nearly three-hour piece. It’s difficult, in fact, to think of any similarly structural word that would apply. “Collage,” perhaps. “Compilation,” possibly, or even “pastiche.”

The most accurate description may simply be that it was a long evening’s worth of Mingus music -- some of it expansive, some fragmentary, much of it original and familiar (“Better Get It in Your Soul,” “Peggy’s Blue Skylight”), a few segments based on arrangements of pieces by Jelly Roll Morton (“Wolverine Blues”), Thelonious Monk (“Well, You Needn’t”) and Vernon Duke (“I Can’t Get Started”) -- all performed by an ensemble that represented the instrumentation of an inflated big jazz band.

If Mingus seriously thought of “Epitaph” as a symphony, the connective links, the thematic development that one would expect from even the most idiosyncratic interpretation of that label, were nowhere to be heard.

The elements that did bring a sense of connectedness to the music were less specific (and much less symphonic): the dark, rhythmic underpinnings, vocalized horn passages, intimate linkages between improvisations and ensemble passages that characterize all of Mingus’ music, regardless of the size of the ensemble; the sardonic humor that urges him to include quotes -- within the same piece -- from Dvorak’s “Humoresque No. 7,” David Rose’s “Holiday for Strings” and Duke Ellington’s “Reminiscing in Tempo”; the incipient feeling of approaching chaos, of spontaneity that could break out in any direction at any time.

The latter quality, so vital to Mingus’ own performances, was least present. And as the program unfolded -- with a hovering sense of darkness in the first half; lighter, more melodically charming in the second -- one sensed that what was really missing was Mingus. It may be affirming in some sense for “Epitaph” to be memorialized as a “jazz symphony.” But admirable as Schuller is for preserving and performing the work, its true life could only have taken place with Mingus at the helm -- or with someone possessing the same no-holds-barred approach to jazz performance.

Mingus’ music, “Epitaph” included, has never just been about the notes; it has also been about the constant re-invention that takes place with each performance. Until “Epitaph” is rendered with the same spontaneity -- with Mingus’ willingness to change elements on the spot, trim and add segments, extend solos, badger the players into producing their best -- it will exist primarily as a fascinating, sometimes entertaining, sometimes wearying academic rediscovery.