MINGUS AH HUM/VINYLE BLEU 180GR

Description

With: Charles Mingus (bass), Jimmy Knepper (trombone), Booker Ervin (tenor sax), John Handy (alto sax), Horace Parlan (piano), Dannie Richmond (drums), among others.
Jelly Roll Morton (Jelly Roll), Duke Ellington (Open Letter To Duke), Lester Young (Goodbye Pork Pie Hat), Charlie Parker (Bird Calls): the great elders are honored in Charles Mingus's first Columbia record, a monument of formal perfection at the heart of which his double bass, as usual, holds authority, as evidenced by the legendary introduction of Better Git In Your Soul, which kicks off with a few notes before the gospel fervor fills the sound space. It is an understatement to say that "Ah Um," recorded in May 1959, a fantastic year, ranks among the most accomplished LPs of its charismatic leader, who even treated himself to a Self-Portrait in Three Colors where his famous workshop, worthy of the studios of great painters, indeed brought forth all the nuances of his music, thanks to arrangements of a fluid beauty with shimmering reflections. "Ah Um" also makes one aware, more than sixty years after its conception in a New York studio under the supervision of producer Teo Macero, that jazz according to Mingus escaped all codes and all stereotypes, without renouncing any of the essential values: swing and melody.