Mingus Ah Um - Charles Mingus (1959)

Ideated from: a Black History Month reminder that black artists largely built the modern world of music

I talk a lot here about Miles Davis, who had a particular way of running his groups. He wanted the best players, but he wanted them to play what they wanted rather than following a chart or arrangement. I also talk a lot about John Coltrane, who to my understanding existed mostly in his own universe and expected his band to just try to keep up.

Mingus was a more traditionally minded bandleader, heavily influenced by Duke Ellington to be a composer as well as a maestro. He had a very clear idea of what he wanted, and he extracted it–sometimes ruthlessly–from his players. Nobody in Mingus’s bands played what they wanted. They played what Mingus wanted.

This was an early record, but Mingus is fully in form already. A collection of songs that balance traditional jazz and cutting edge ideas, played exactingly by the band, with Mingus’s clear, pulsing bass leading the way.

Nerd note: The album title is a pun in Latin. If you look up an adjective in a Latin dictionary, it will show you the masculine form, along with the suffixes you need to make it feminine or neuter. “Magnus,” for instance, means big. The dictionary will say “Magnus -a -um” so you know how to use it in “magnus vir,” “magna carta,” and “magnum opus.” Mingus looks like it could be a latin adjective, so this is what it would look like if he was in the dictionary.

Tracks I Liked

Better Get Hit In Your Soul - maybe one of the ultimate encapsulations of what the man was about. Playing a driving rhythm, shouting along off-mic, bringing in a memorable refrain, and still leaving space for his musicians.

Goodbye Porkpie Hat - a tribute to the recently deceased Lester Young. A gorgeous ballad.

Self-portrait in Three Colors - I assume the colors here refer to the three horn parts that interweave and occasionally clash, while still sounding beautiful

Fables Of Faubus- a non-album version with vocals features a savage lyric trashing Arkansas governor Orval Faubus’ segregation politics