Track Listing

1. Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul
2. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat [Unedited Form]
3. Boogie Stop Shuffle [Unedited Form]
4. Self-Portrait in Three Colors
5. Open Letter to Duke [Unedited Form]
6. Bird Calls [Unedited Form]
7. Fables of Faubus
8. Pussy Cat Dues
9. Jelly Roll
10. Pedal Point Blues [*]
11. GG Train [*]
12. Girl of My Dreams [*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98719 in Music
• Released on: 1999-02-16
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Import
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Mercurial bassist and bandleader Charles Mingus was signed to Columbia Records for the briefest of time during 1959. His Columbia recordings, however, remain some of the most inspired, mood-jumping jazz in history. The flowing sadness of "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" (unedited here for the first time on CD!) rings like a funeral chorus that pitches headlong into a celebration of Lester Young's life and improvising flexibility, rather than his death. And there's the funky furnace blast of "Boogie Stop Shuffle" (also unedited!), which reaches its glory with Booker Ervin's Texas tenor sax, wrapped tight in bluesy tone. With the index of emotions captured, these songs nail why Mingus is possibly the most relevant jazzer for the 1990s generation. He swings and shouts and hollers and somersaults. His tunes either induce foot-stomping with their intensity or reach for poignant yearning with their lyrical tapestry of orchestral colors. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Indispensable
Ah Um is one of Charles Mingus's most richly textured albums, dense and dynamic all at once. It is almost as if the whole of the jazz tradition to that date, and some vision of its immediate future, were crammed into three-quarters of an hour.

It is not as ambitious as The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963) and still retains some measure of conventionality in the structures of some of its constituent pieces: introduction, ensemble statement of the theme, solos, development, recapitulation, closing statement.

Peculiar wails weave themselves in and out of ironic quotations from Ellington, from Mingus, from the blues, all cloaked in the enormity of the Mingus sound, thrust forward by rhythms and counter-rhythms tightly driven by Dannie Richmond. It contains the passionate, aching "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". An indispensable album.

unbeatable mingus selection!
This is a rarity - a Mingus album with no duff tracks at all - everything is spot-on.The eclecticism of the music and its execution are breathtaking - if you need music to wake you up, try Boogie Stop Shuffle (so that's where they got the Mission Impossible theme from!).The gentler side of Mingus emerges beautifully on the slower tracks such as Pork Pie Hat.As for the recording - how did they manage such stunning sound? OK,it's remastered, but compare it to Monk CDs from the same time and it leaves them behind - vibrant,balanced,clear and dynamic - a must-buy!

Essential
In a era that produced such original composers as Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols , Mingus' approach to composition always seemed more organic and embedded deeper within the roots of jazz than these contemporaries. (Nichols, in particular, had the musical knowledge to look outside of jazz for inspiration.) This is largely compensated by the sheer physical emotion of the music that largely consisted of material based upon the blues. The impact of Mingus is immediate and passionate. On top of this, he was influenced by the music of Duke Ellington and was a great believer in the need for sudden shifts in tempo and mood with which to colour his music. This approach probably reached it's zenith in "Mingus Ah Um" where his group deliever the definative performances of some of his most celebrated tunes.
From the opening gospel inspired number in 6/8 time through to the loving dixieland pastiche dedicated to a certain Mr. Jelly Roll Morton at the end, this is gripping stuff. The music ranges from exciting bebop such as "Boogie Stop Shuffle" through to "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", a threnody to Lester Young.
This is not only an essential purchase for fans of the bassist, but should be in every jazz collection. The whole performance is driven along by the great Dannie Richmond on drums and the energy he provides merits this purchase alone. A true jazz classic.