Mingus Ah Um
- Scores: Noise 1, Unease 1, Complexity 2 (each 1 to 5)
- Genre: Jazz, Hard bop
- Mood: raucous, joyful, mournful
- Sound: hard bop, shouted ensemble interjections, gospel and blues, tribute pieces, group improvisation
Mingus Ah Um is an extended tribute to Mingus’s musical ancestors, and it mixes gospel, blues, bebop and swing in a single record. Mingus recorded it in May 1959 in New York with producer Teo Macero and a workshop band including John Handy, Booker Ervin, Jimmy Knepper, Horace Parlan and Dannie Richmond. “Better Git It in Your Soul” draws on gospel preaching and singing, “Boogie Stop Shuffle” is a twelve-bar blues with four themes that moves between stop time and shuffle, and “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is a tribute to Lester Young. “Fables of Faubus” was recorded as an instrumental because Columbia refused its politically charged lyrics, and “Open Letter to Duke” combines three earlier Mingus pieces.
Track list
- Better Git It in Your Soul (7:22)
- Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (4:48)
- Boogie Stop Shuffle (3:43)
- Self-Portrait in Three Colors (3:06)
- Open Letter to Duke (4:56)
- Bird Calls (3:12)
- Fables of Faubus (8:14)
- Pussy Cat Dues (6:30)
- Jelly Roll (4:02)