#Better git it in your soul analysis free#

On the upside, the two Ellington tunes are very enjoyable. “Put Me in That Dungeon” has a really whiny, old-time character that screams Put Me In That Museum, and not even the cellos’ modern lifeline can save it. “Gunslinging Bird” recreates the multi-layered blues fever of “Boogie Stop Shuffle”. The vocal exhortations from Mingus are more obnoxious, all the yeahs and allelujahs signifying the heat of some cliched blues licking indeed. “Slop” is a sloppy ripoff of “Better Git It”, same beat, same melody, same sax solo breakdown. And like any sequel, Dynasty has a few repeats. Very much a sequel to Ah Um, adding trumpet, flute, vibes, and cellos to the palette and swelling to ten players at times. All in all, Ah Um is an essential album, maybe a little more reserved than other Mingus sessions, yet still very colorful and occasionally impassioned. The 1998 reissue adds three bonus tracks from the sessions, the best of which is “Pedal Point Blues”. Standing apart is the hymn-like “Self Portrait in Three Colors”, where saxes and trombone create complex sonorities.

“Jelly Roll” is also a bit too rear-view-mirror, but it’s so infectious, with the one-two rhythm, slapped bass, hokey ending, etc. The only time it gets boring is in “Pussy Cat Dues”, which is the longest track and sounds like it was played twenty years earlier. The blues informs so much of Ah Um, if not in form then in the crying sound of it.

The “hit” of the album is “Goodbye Porkpie Hat”, a blues-dirge in honor of Lester Young, with a near perfect tenor solo from John Handy. Here and elsewhere, the players function like a big band, with controlled dynamics, prescribed rhythms, and soloists getting two or three choruses at the most. In the archtypical “Better Get It”, Mingus leads the band from the bass chair, not just in the extroverted lines but in their ability to support a host of activity on top. “Fables of Faubus” is also multisectional, always adding some new motif over its rhythmic limp. “Open Letter to Duke” begins with bop solos from saxmen Booker Ervin and Shadi Hafi, before the rhythm drops low and the horns get starry-eyed, then the mood picks back up again. The hot-tempo “Boogie Stop Shuffle” embellishes the blues as Ellington might. The menu includes fervent 6/8 aerobics (“Better Git It in Your Soul”), early century two-stepping (“Jelly Roll”, with a catchy Jimmy Knepper trombone line), impressionistic ballads (“Goodbye Porkpie Hat”, “Self Portrait in Three Colors”), swing theater (“Fables of Faubus”), and bop (“Bird Calls”), among other entrees. He leads up to seven players here, sometimes dropping down to five. This classic LP distills Mingus’ sound into something definitive and accessible. The multi-hued cover painting fits the music, a gallery of canvases that draw from a wide historical palette. Mingus recorded a large catalog, including lots of great stuff for Atlantic in the ‘50s and ‘70s, but I’ve only got a few other favorites listed below.

#Better git it in your soul analysis free#

Mingus is sometimes mentioned as a precursor to the avant-garde while his opinion on free jazz was that “you can’t improvise on nothing,” certain sections in his compositions leave the soloist free from chord strictures, and there are occasional instances of collective improv, usually for programmatic effect. Mingus’ name signifies a genre unto itself, involving extended forms, bluesy inflections, complex horn textures, and a large rhythmic vocabulary. Jazz Shelf: Charles Mingus Charles Mingusĭemon bassist, visionary composer, fierce bandleader.