{"title":"Charlie Mingus","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-black-saint-and-the-sinner-lady-yellow-coloured-vinyl","title":"The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Yellow Coloured Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003eRecording made on January 20, 1963 in New York with personal and socially relevant content entitled \"The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ermitage","offers":[{"title":"Yellow LP","offer_id":50403910320459,"sku":"2173072","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_fa1bf7fa_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726564975"},{"product_id":"blues-and-roots-2","title":"Blues and Roots","description":"\u003cp\u003eAllMusic marks Charles Mingus' \u003ci\u003eBlues \u0026amp; Roots\u003c\/i\u003e as a rejoinder to the critical carping that the virtuoso bass player and accomplished jazz pianist and bandleader and his evocative music \"somehow didn't swing enough.\" For this album Mingus turned to the earthiest and earliest sources of black musical expression — blues, gospel, and old-time New Orleans jazz. The resulting album ranks arguably as Mingus' most joyously swinging outing.  Recorded in 1959 and released in 1960, \u003ci\u003eBlues \u0026amp; Roots\u003c\/i\u003e' birth was explained by Mingus in the album's liner notes: \"This record is unusual - it presents only one part of my musical world, the blues. A year ago, Nesuhi Ertegün suggested that I record an entire blues album in the style of 'Haitian Fight Song' (in Atlantic LP 1260), because some people, particularly critics, were saying I didn't swing enough. He wanted to give them a barrage of soul music: churchy, blues, swinging, earthy. I thought it over. I was born swinging and clapped my hands in church as a little boy, but I've grown up and I like to do things other than just swing. But blues can do more than just swing. So I agreed.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Analogue Productions","offers":[{"title":"Black LPx2","offer_id":50527873925451,"sku":"2057300","price":89.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50527874679115,"sku":"2057301","price":49.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/unnamed_1_676422e2_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1728058597"},{"product_id":"jazz-composers-workshop","title":"Jazz Composers Workshop","description":"\u003cp\u003eBy now, it’s well understood that Charlie Mingus was never just a bassist — he was a visionary composer, an architect of chaos and clarity, and one of jazz’s most defiant innovators. With roots in hard bop, threads from classical modernism, gospel, and the radical freedom of the avant-garde, Mingus built a musical language all his own — furious, tender, explosive. Jazz Composers Workshop, first released in 1956 by Savoy, may not carry the seismic weight of Pithecanthropus Erectus (which Mingus would record just a year later), but the sparks are already flying. These sessions were originally spread across two 10-inch releases — Moods of Mingus and Cirillo \u0026amp; Scott (the latter credited to Walter Cirillo and Bobby Scott).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSide One is a Mingus-led masterclass, featuring Teo Macero, John LaPorta, George Barrow, Mal Waldron, and Rudy Nichols. The opening track, Purple Heart, feels like an overture to Mingus’ later triumphs — sophisticated, sweeping, yet still gritty. LaPorta’s clarinet weaves between bop rhythms and contemporary classical textures. Gregarian Chant begins with a reflective bass line that evolves into a complex ensemble piece. And Eulogy for Rudy Williams stands out as one of Mingus’ early emotional high points — an elegy that swells with warmth and grief. Even the closer on that side, Tea for Two, offers sly subversions of a standard, touched with Mingus’ signature asymmetry and mischief. Side Two shifts the spotlight to pianist Wally Cirillo and tenor saxophonist Teo Macero, with Mingus now in the sideman chair (though his presence is still unmistakable). Kenny Clarke is on drums, and the session leans closer to the hard bop mainstream — but not without surprises. Smog L.A. acts as a smoky pivot between the abstract and the grounded, tying the experimental flavour of Side One to the more orthodox, though still spirited, pieces that follow. Cirillo’s piano lines crackle with sharp phrasing and melodic risk, and Macero matches him in boldness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat emerges from Jazz Composers Workshop is a dual portrait of jazz in the mid-1950s — one side exploratory and genre-defying, the other rooted and refined. It’s not a grand statement like Pithecanthropus Erectus, but in some ways it’s more revealing: a glimpse into the lab where Mingus was splicing genres, bending rules, and pushing his sound into new territory. Drop the needle and don’t expect a smooth ride. This album swerves, stretches, and swings — a vivid document of a genius in motion, shaping the future one session at a time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Playtime","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":51957725954379,"sku":"R9405-9536","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0795847580791.jpg?v=1749035047"},{"product_id":"tonight-at-noon","title":"Tonight At Noon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTonight At Noon\u003c\/em\u003e compiles tracks from two earlier recordings sessions: one session from 1957 with Jimmy Knepper on the trombone, the drummer Dannie Richmond, Saxophone player Shafi Hadi and the pianist Wade Legge, which were released on the album \"The Clown\" (Atlantic 1260). The second session took place in 1961 with Booker Ervin and Roland Kirk on the saxophone, Knepper, the bassist Doug Watkins, Mingus at the piano and Richmond on the drums, and was released on \"Oh Yeah\" (Atlantic SD 1377).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two sets differ in mood, but this does not mean that it is an album that uses leftovers. While Mingus in the first session strives for European harmonics and melodic approaches with a hard bop tempo (particularly on the title track) in the direction of the blues, the second session with its vespertine elegance and spatial explorations comes over rather as a sort of exercise à la avantgard Ellington with sophisticated harmonies that pave the way for sluggish marches and gospel-like blues. Kirk and Ervin complement one another particularly well, their swing is appararently boundless. Mingus’s piano playing is deeply rooted in the blues, and his sense of tempo and lightness anhances these numbers, particularly in \"‘Old’ Blues for Walt’s Torin\". \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn these compositions one already finds hints of Mingus’s later recordings. The most beautiful number is taken from the 1957 session and concludes the album: \"Passions Of A Woman Loved\", almost ten minutes in length, feels like an Ellington suite. Although, or maybe simply because several years passed between the two sessions, one cannot deny this album’s magic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Speakers Corner","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":56237540180299,"sku":"R0373-0554","price":44.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/unnamed-2026-01-06T101707.721.jpg?v=1767694638"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/charlie-mingus.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}