Ah Um 50th Anniversary (Legacy Edition)

Charles Mingus's 1959 Columbia sessions were both a summation of his diverse work up to that point and a bold step forward, for it was the year when at last he had the opportunity to sign with a major label and work with an old friend and musical collaborator, Teo Macero. There was no stopping this incredible musical mind who'd found his voice as a bassist, composer and bandleader.

The bands that Mingus assembled at Columbia's 30th Street studio in May and November '59 consisted of the greatest exponents of his music to date, featuring sidemen Jimmy Knepper, John Handy, Booker Ervin, Horace Parlan and Dannie Richmond. These 1959 sessions, which resulted in MINGUS AH UM and MINGUS DYNASTY, introduced several classics that would become evergreens in the bassist's repertoire and jazz standards for the rest of us: "Better Git It In Your Soul," "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and "Fables Of Faubus," plus homages to jazz greats Ellington ("Open Letter To Duke")--with whom Mingus is most frequently (and fairly) compared for the vastness, depth and diversity of his recordings--and Morton ("Jelly Roll"), jazz's first great composer.

This landmark edition collects on 2 CDs what can be singled out as the definitive Mingus--not only a stand out in perhaps jazz's greatest year but also music that had a seminal influence on jazz and rock thinking in the '60s and beyond ...