Mingus Ah Um

Mingus Ah Um is an album by Charles Mingus, recorded and released in 1959.

Related Topics:
Album - Charles Mingus - 1959

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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 more direct reference to Lester Young (who had died a couple of months before the album was recorded). "Boogie Stop Shuffle"'s origin and nature is self-explanatory: a twelve-bar blues with four themes and a boogie bass backing that comes and goes.

Related Topics:
Watts, Los Angeles, California - Lester Young - Twelve-bar blues - Boogie

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"Self-Portrait in Three Colors" was originally written for John Cassavetes' first film as director, Shadows, but wasn't used (for budgetary reasons). "Open Letter to Duke" is, of course, a tribute to Duke Ellington, and draws on three of Mingus's earlier pieces ("Nouroog", "Duke's Choice", and "Slippers"). "Bird Calls" is an equally obvious reference to Charlie Parker, and "Jelly Roll" to Jelly Roll Morton.

Related Topics:
John Cassavetes - Shadows - Duke Ellington - Charlie Parker - Jelly Roll Morton

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"Fables of Faubus" is named after Orval E. Faubus (1910–1994), the infamous Democratic Governor of Arkansas, famous for his 1957 stand against integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court rulings (forcing President Eisenhower to send in the National Guard). It is sometimes claimed that Columbia refused to allow the lyrics to be included on this album, though Brian Priestley (in his liner notes to the 1998 reissue of the album) says that the piece started life as an instrumental, and only gained the lyrics later.

Related Topics:
Fables of Faubus - Orval E. Faubus - Democratic - Governor of Arkansas - 1957 - Little Rock, Arkansas - U.S. Supreme Court - President Eisenhower - National Guard - 1998

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When Columbia first issued the album, six of the nine numbers were shortened in order to fit them on the LP. When in 1979 these six tracks were restored, three other recorded tracks were discovered, and the reissue contains both the full-length versions of the original tracks and the three new tracks: "Pedal Point Blues", "GG Train", and "Girl of My Dreams".

Related Topics:
LP - 1979

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