Landmark Jazz Album #7 - Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um (Columbia)

Mingus (b), Jimmy Knepper/Willie Dennis (tb), John Handy (as, ts), Shafi Hadi (as), Booker Ervin (ts), Horace Parlan (p) and Dannie Richmond (d).Rec. 1959

Just as with the Monk at number six, this classic album also represented a career breakthrough. Recorded not long after his Blues And Roots, but Atlantic deliberately held that back for over a year because the bassist had signed his first contract with Columbia, the major whose distribution, especially to the white audience, was much more powerful.

Ah Um’s release came in the same year as his first evening appearance at the Newport Festival and the start of his record-breaking residency with Eric Dolphy.

The present album, however, was a studio venture with a specially constituted group familiar with Mingus’ working quintets. Ervin’s contributions, for instance, ‘Fables Of Faubus’‚ and the gospelised opener ‘Better Git It In Your Soul’, are a definition of “hot”, while Knepper on the deliberately old-fashioned ‘Jelly Roll’‚ makes it satirical and serious at the same time. S

imilar things apply to ‘Bird Calls’‚ and ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, where Handy pays oblique homage to Parker and Lester Young respectively but don’t ignore the crucial reactions of the crisply recorded Richmond. Novice producer Teo Macero’s tight editing allowed for more tunes and more user-friendly presentation than on Blues And Roots.

CREDITS: BP