Mingus Ah Um is one of the records that shows just how wide jazz can be.
There is blues, gospel, Ellington, hard bop, collective improvisation, protest and humour! Charles Mingus wrote music with enormous personality and this 1959 album may be the clearest single introduction to his world.
“Better Git It in Your Soul” is exuberant and church-like, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is one of jazz’s great anthems, while “Fables of Faubus” carries a completely different kind of weight.
It is essential Mingus, but more importantly, it is still thrilling music.
Mingus was a bassist, composer and bandleader who wanted the spontaneity of jazz without sacrificing compositional ambition.
That tension is all over this record. Themes appear, collide and return. The horns can sound joyous one moment and almost orchestral the next, while Dannie Richmond gives Mingus the rhythmic partnership that became central to so much of his music.
There is structure here, but it never feels constrained by it.
New and sealed limited-edition 1LP release from Number One Essentials.
2026 edition.
Catalogue: 291048
Barcode: 8436563186905
Carefully packed and dispatched using protective vinyl mailers.
Recorded at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York in May 1959 and produced by Teo Macero, Mingus Ah Um was Mingus’s first album for Columbia.
The session included Booker Ervin, John Handy, Horace Parlan and Dannie Richmond, among others, and produced a remarkable sequence of Mingus compositions including “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, “Boogie Stop Shuffle” and “Fables of Faubus”.
This limited Number One Essentials edition was issued in 2026 and presents the nine-track album on a single LP.
Mingus Ah Um is one of the records that shows just how wide jazz can be.
There is blues, gospel, Ellington, hard bop, collective improvisation, protest and humour! Charles Mingus wrote music with enormous personality and this 1959 album may be the clearest single introduction to his world.
“Better Git It in Your Soul” is exuberant and church-like, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is one of jazz’s great anthems, while “Fables of Faubus” carries a completely different kind of weight.
It is essential Mingus, but more importantly, it is still thrilling music.
Mingus was a bassist, composer and bandleader who wanted the spontaneity of jazz without sacrificing compositional ambition.
That tension is all over this record. Themes appear, collide and return. The horns can sound joyous one moment and almost orchestral the next, while Dannie Richmond gives Mingus the rhythmic partnership that became central to so much of his music.
There is structure here, but it never feels constrained by it.
New and sealed limited-edition 1LP release from Number One Essentials.
2026 edition.
Catalogue: 291048
Barcode: 8436563186905
Carefully packed and dispatched using protective vinyl mailers.
Recorded at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York in May 1959 and produced by Teo Macero, Mingus Ah Um was Mingus’s first album for Columbia.
The session included Booker Ervin, John Handy, Horace Parlan and Dannie Richmond, among others, and produced a remarkable sequence of Mingus compositions including “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, “Boogie Stop Shuffle” and “Fables of Faubus”.
This limited Number One Essentials edition was issued in 2026 and presents the nine-track album on a single LP.
