The Complete Town Hall Concert

The Complete Town Hall Concert is a live album by the American jazz musician Charles Mingus released on Blue Note label 1994. It was recorded at the Town Hall in New York City in 1962. Some tracks were previously released on the United Artists label in 1962 as Town Hall Concert (not to be confused with the 1964 live album of the same name).

The concert was conceived as a "live workshop" of newly composed music which would be recorded for release by United Artists but rescheduling, lack of rehearsal time, poor sound and interruptions led to the event and subsequent album being considered a disaster.

Multi-instrumentalist Buddy Collette, who was Mingus` childhood mentor and also present in the orchestra, stated that Mingus and the date`s organizer, George Wein, were at odds from the beginning. Wein wanted it to be a concert while Mingus envisioned an open recording session where he would explain to the audience what the musicians were doing. Mingus threatened multiple times to quit during rehearsals as he didn`t want a concert.

Much of the music intended for the performance was finally realized by conductor Gunther Schuller in a concert in 1989 as Epitaph.