Mingus Ah Um is one of my favorite two Charles Mingus albums. It is his first album for Columbia Records recorded in 1959. Better Git it in Your Soul starts it off with a gospel tinged stop time tune that is wonderfully rousing. Dannie Richmond is a really fine propulsive drummer and Horace Parlan , whose right hand was partially crippled by polio when he was a baby, developed a very rhythmic and unique approach to piano playing as a result. Besides Mingus on bass there are three saxes and two trombones in the group. Next comes the now classic tribute to Lester Young called Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. It's a slow blues with interesting chords and harmonies. One of the highlights is the sensitive triple tonguing during some of the passages. Boogie Stop Shuffle is a fast moving up tempo tune that makes me think of a Rolls Royce cruising at high speed down the highway. There are marvelous passages where the horns go slightly out of tune together that give me the visual impression one gets of a car rounding a corner and stretching as it makes the turn as in cartoons. Jelly Roll is a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton in the musical style of New Orleans. Fables of Faubus is named after Orval E. Faubus (1910–1994), the Governor of Arkansas infamous for his 1957 stand against integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court rulings (forcing President Eisenhower to send in the National Guard). Columbia Records refused to allow the lyrics to the song to be included, and so the song was recorded as an instrumental on the album. The arrangement of the rolling saxophones and trombones is captivating. The soloing by all players is top notch throughout this album. Some of the Mingus efforts can get (especially live recordings) much more free form and abstract and not to everyone's taste, however I consider this coherent and focused album to be one of his two masterpieces. I'll look at my other favorite next week.
Link for the Full Album song by song
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiN-7mukU_REK9zBMvZoNERNvhovxnsE5
