Charles Mingus: Mingus Ah Um: 50th Anniversary Legacy Edition

This special edition marks the 50th anniversary of bassist Charles Mingus' 1959 Columbia masterpiece, one of the great records in a year that included Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Columbia), John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic) and Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic). The Legacy edition is a two-CD set that also includes Mingus' second Columbia record of 1959, Mingus Dynasty, as well as alternate takes. It restores portions that were edited out on the original LPs in the interests of length and generally follows the three-CD 1998 release of The Complete 1959 Columbia Recordings, omitting just three alternate takes from the Dynasty sessions.

It's extremely well-known material but no matter how often one hears it, it's impressive work, from the stunning range of textures and moods that Mingus can summon from a small group—just seven players on the Ah Um sessions—to the tumultuous energy that he and drummer Dannie Richmond can generate. Mingus celebrates many of his forebears without actually imitating them, including the classic homage to the then recently-deceased Lester Young, "Good-bye Pork Pie Hat"; the skipping two-beat syncopation of "Jelly Roll" that suggests Morton; the "Open Letter to Duke," an invocation of Mingus' principal model with a Latin beat and the expressionist "Bird Calls," which looks ahead to free jazz as much as it pays tribute to Charlie Parker.

Throughout the first disc, Mingus is well-served by his sidemen, from the elegant trombone work of Jimmy Knepper or Willie Dennis to the stylistic contrasts of the saxophonists—Booker Ervin's heated tenor, John Handy's suave refinement and the deep blues of Shafi Hadi. The compositions get denser and more ambitious on the slightly less-successful Dynasty sessions, including the occasional addition of cello parts, but it's still a major work, a composition of sublime spirit and luminous intelligence. It was just a year later that Mingus constructed hisgreatest small group—the quartet with Eric Dolphy that recorded Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus—but with Mingus Ah Um he had already made his greatest statement as a composer.