Seriously. Black Saint And The Sinner Lady has to be the best album I've ever heard. You can hear direct influence on Starsailor from this album. It's just magnificent, and quite possibly the most important Jazz composition ever conjured. Blew my mind away.

I'm a big Mingus fan (have just about everything he did as leader and sideman), and I agree that his three Impulse releases are great. Other than Duke Ellington (Mingus' hero) who else was writing things like jazz ballets in 1963? Check out the "Mingus Plays Piano" LP also.

If you read the Underwood book, he relates a story of Buckley seeing Mingus sitting in a club and Buckley insisting that there be silence from the piped-in music so that Mingus could concentrate on whatever he was working on. May be a dubious story, but obviously Buckley held Mingus in high regard.

Certainly Mingus starting his own record labels in the 50s (Debut) and 60s (Mingus Enterprises) showed that he didn't want to be someone else's victim, just as Buckley felt about audience expectations.

AND I just realized that today would have been Mingus' 86th birthday (4/22/22, or 22/4/22 for yew non-'Marcans...).

DRJ wrote:
I'm a big Mingus fan (have just about everything he did as leader and sideman), and I agree that his three Impulse releases are great. Other than Duke Ellington (Mingus' hero) who else was writing things like jazz ballets in 1963? Check out the "Mingus Plays Piano" LP also.

If you read the Underwood book, he relates a story of Buckley seeing Mingus sitting in a club and Buckley insisting that there be silence from the piped-in music so that Mingus could concentrate on whatever he was working on. May be a dubious story, but obviously Buckley held Mingus in high regard.

Certainly Mingus starting his own record labels in the 50s (Debut) and 60s (Mingus Enterprises) showed that he didn't want to be someone else's victim, just as Buckley felt about audience expectations.

AND I just realized that today would have been Mingus' 86th birthday (4/22/22, or 22/4/22 for yew non-'Marcans...).

Yes, remember where the website is _base_d. =D