Description
Charles Mingus – Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus – 180 Gram Vinyl Record
Acoustic Sounds Series
Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus revisits Charles Mingus compositions from earlier stages of his career through larger, newly voiced arrangements. Recorded in 1963 for Impulse!, it is less a conventional retrospective than an act of recomposition. Familiar themes return with different titles, expanded colors, and a band capable of shifting from disciplined ensemble writing to eruptive improvisation.
“II B.S.” reworks “Haitian Fight Song” with tremendous forward motion, while “I X Love” and “Celia” reveal Mingus’s lyrical side. Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” sits naturally among the originals, acknowledging a foundational influence while showing how distinctly Mingus could shape dynamics, texture, and instrumental character.
The personnel includes Eric Dolphy, Booker Ervin, Charlie Mariano, Jaki Byard, Dannie Richmond, and other major voices from the Mingus orbit. Their contrasting timbres are part of the composition: reeds cry, brass punches through the ensemble, Byard moves between historical piano languages, and Richmond keeps even the densest passages swinging.
On side two, “Better Get Hit in Yo’ Soul” turns gospel rhythm into communal propulsion, “Theme for Lester Young” revisits the elegiac “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” and “Hora Decubitus” closes with compressed, hard-driving energy. The record balances remembrance and reinvention, refusing to treat earlier work as fixed.
This Verve Acoustic Sounds Series pressing returns the seven-track original LP program to 180-gram vinyl in a tip-on gatefold presentation. Expanded digital editions may separate or append “Freedom”; this listing follows the physical Acoustic Sounds sequence.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
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