Tijuana Moods by Charles Mingus is one of my two favorite Mingus albums. Tijuana Moods is an album by Charles Mingus, recorded in 1957 but not released until June 1962 so it seemed like it was recorded after Minus Ah Um which is from 1959. Mingus was born April 22, 1922 in Nogales, AZ which is a border town that is across the river from Nogales, AZ. His father, Charles Mingus Sr., was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. and Mingus junior was largely raised in the Watts area of Los Angeles.
Dannie Richmond is again the most excellent drummer for these sessions. Shafi Hadi on tenor and alto sax and Jimmy Knepper on trombone are the only two musicians that also were on Mingus Ah Um.
My favorite track is Ysabel's Table Dance featuring Ysabel Morel on castanets and vocals. This song has a very wide range of dynamics going from a a solo castanet to a urban sounding jazz orchestra to a volcanic cauldron of group improvisation to a solo piano part that brings it all back down to rebuild again to a crescendo. It is quite a thrilling musical event and the approach is used elsewhere to great effect. Unlike many Avant Garde type attempts Minus manages to push the envelope of musical comprehension over the edge but then brings it back rather than just leave things in a state of chaos. Flamingo is the one non Mingus tune and jazz standard on this album. They do a meditative take on this beautiful melody with interesting background harmonies that sag into dissonance at times. All in all a first rate collection of songs. Below are the links, in order, to the original album's songs (other items have been included with reissues that you can see on Youtube). Hope you enjoy this as much as I do.
