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Mingus Ah Um

Mingus Ah Um
Mingus Ah Um - Charles Mingus.jpg
Studio album by Charles Mingus
Released September 14, 1959 (1959-09-14)
Recorded May 5 and May 12, 1959
Studio Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City
Genre Post-bop
Length 72:11
Label Columbia
Producer Teo Macero
Charles Mingus chronology
Blues & Roots
(rec. 1959/
rel. 1960)
Mingus Ah Um
(1959)
Mingus Dynasty
(1959)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 5/5 stars
Popmatters 10/10 stars
About.com 5/5 stars
Rolling Stone 5/5 stars

Mingus Ah Um is a studio album by American jazz musician Charles Mingus, released in 1959 by Columbia Records. It was his first album recorded for Columbia. The cover features a painting by S. Neil Fujita.

The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD calls this album "an extended tribute to ancestors" (and awards it one of their rare crowns), and Mingus's musical forebears figure largely throughout. "Better Git It In Your Soul" is inspired by gospel singing and preaching of the sort that Mingus would have heard as a child growing up in Watts, Los Angeles, California, while "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is a reference (by way of his favored headgear) to saxophonist Lester Young (who had died shortly before the album was recorded). The origin and nature of "Boogie Stop Shuffle" is self-explanatory: a twelve-bar blues with four themes and a boogie bass backing that passes from stop time to shuffle and back.

"Self-Portrait in Three Colors" was originally written for John Cassavetes' first film as director, Shadows, but was never used (for budgetary reasons). "Open Letter to Duke" is a tribute to Duke Ellington, and draws on three of Mingus's earlier pieces ("Nouroog", "Duke's Choice", and "Slippers"). "Jelly Roll" is a reference to jazz pioneer and pianist Jelly Roll Morton and features a quote of Sonny Rollins' "Sonnymoon for Two" during Horace Parlan's piano solo. "Bird Calls", in Mingus's own words, was not a reference to bebop saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker: "It wasn't supposed to sound like Charlie Parker. It was supposed to sound like birds – the first part."


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