The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Charles Mingus, 1963)

One doesn't simply listen to this album. It's one of those albums that demands all of your attention. No you cannot read, work, eat, operate a vehicle, run, walk, jog, or dance to this music. So of course I am a bad person and have yet to carve out a little niche in my schedule for The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. And because of this I still feel daunted every time I listen to this album (while doing something else, of course, because I've been doing wrong by the album). This statement coming from a great admirer of another ambitious album, A Love Supreme. You can't pigeonhole Mingus neatly into a genre, not on any of his albums. However, this one takes genre-bending about as far as it goes, pulling together elements of big band, bebop, avant-garde, traditional, ballet and who-knows-what-else.

Particularly in jazz, if your name is on an album then you are the focus. For piano, guitar, sax, and trumpet, it's pretty easy to establish yourself as the main attraction. Drummers and bassists have it a little different since other than Jaco Pastorius it's a little taxing to listen to music swamped with bass or drum solos. Sure, they're fun and should be included in jazz, but not the entire album! Realizing an entire album of bass solos, especially in the 1950's and 1960's probably wouldn't garner much attention, Mingus focused on his real gift, which is writing and arrangement. I've always been impressed by how Mingus writes for others, recognizing that bass alone does not make the album. In a similar way Art Blakey, a fantastic drummer, channeled much energy into band-leading and mentoring.

I think I just need to spend more quality time with this album and I'm sure I'll one day understand why this album frequently makes the top 10 in many jazz polls.

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Charles Mingus, 1964)

The music of Charles Mingus is rightfully held in high regard by the jazz community of listeners and performers, but full appreciation requires attention and focus. Four albums in and I still can't fully wrap my brains around even his more accessible albums. This one marked the end of a particularly fruitful period in Mingus's career and one can hear contributions (some more explicit than others) from prior albums like Mingus Ah Um and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. It's not as complicated as the latter, but more ornate than the former, and usually falls just short of those two if one is forced to rank their preferences.

This is actually a fairly recent acquisition for me, so I'm still absorbing it. However, having spent time with some of his earlier albums, I can safely say it is relatively accessible, but I cannot recommend it as background music (perish the thought!).

Money Jungle (Duke Ellington, 1962)

Jazz supergroup! And a strange one at that. Why not combine the talents of an aging legend (Ellington), with a hard-bop mainstay (Max Roach), and musical chameleon (Charles Mingus) and see what happens?

Supposedly this recording was fraught with tension, which is not surprising seeing that you've got three guys in the room that by 1962 were all on substantially different trajectories. Ellington, the elder by 20-plus years, had experienced a revival of sorts in the post-"Newport 1956" era, yet had no recording contract at this time. Meanwhile, Mingus was on the verge of recording the complex Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. Not to be outdone, a couple years prior to this, Max Roach masterminded the timely and ambitious We Insist!/Freedom Now Suite. All of this hyper-charged talent can be heard in these incredible clashes expressed musically, with Ellington and Mingus pounding the crap out of their instruments, beating them a-la-Roach.

While this is the only session to feature all three men, Roach had recorded with Ellington the previous year, and had played with the Mingus quintet in 1955, and of course both had played in the Quintet (Jazz at Massey Hall) in 1952. Mingus was also brief in Ellington's big band. Then again, should it be any surprise that everyone had played with everybody else at some point?