Mingus Ah Um: a record of portraits

Mingus Ah Um came out on Columbia in 1959, with a band that had learned the music from him by ear. Several of its tunes are portraits.

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

Lester Young died in March 1959, weeks before the session. Mingus wrote this slow blues for him, named after the hat Young wore.

Fables of Faubus

A tune about Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas who sent the National Guard to keep Black students out of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Columbia released it without its words; Mingus recorded them the next year.

Better Git It in Your Soul opens the record: a church in full swing.

This journal entry is demo copy, written for this example site from published histories.