So why is Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
At some point in my evolution from first appreciating to flat-out loving jazz, I realized: I really dig the era between the late 1950s and mid-1960s.
Why is that exactly? I’m not totally sure, but I’ll use this piece on the brilliant, engaging, and swinging Mingus Ah Um to explore the space, as the great Bruce Dickinson (yes, the Bruce Dickinson) once said.
I read On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, as a teenager growing up on Long Island, New York, and it helped to hardwire in me a love for road trips and seeing new places (and indeed, as I write these words, I’m in my office in Seattle, Washington, and am absolutely thrilled that my life of road trips and travels led me here).
I found the language in On the Road to be tremendously exciting. These cats didn’t just drive around, they raced across the groaning American continent. Wild, right? And then there would be these manic parties and concerts, not just jammed with jazz music, but with a kind of music described as bop and hard bop.
What were bop and hard bop? I didn’t know at the time. This was pre-Internet, and my local music stores in Commack and East Northport, New York didn’t even supply listening stations, kids!
So I just let my imagination run wild.
Cut to the late ‘90s, when I caught The Talented Mr. Ripley in the theater. I had no background on the (also excellent) novel by Patricia Highsmith at the time, and was completely taken with the dark and stylish tale of a young, troubled con artist named Tom Ripley (Matt Damon, in one of his best ever performances) and his obsession with a spoiled, debonair young man named Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Law are all incredible in it.
The Talented Mr. Ripley takes place in late 1950s Italy – 1958, in fact, one year before the release of Mingus Ah Um – and the film just looks spectacular, as if it’s been generated from an artificial intelligence prompt for “make late 1950s Italy look like absolute heaven.”
And then, the music! There’s a tactile feel to the vinyl records that appear in the film, as the names of jazz giants are thrown around: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis.
Oh, and then “Tu Vuo Fà L’Americano,” yes!
And the excitement and mood of those songs come across to me on Mingus Ah Um tracks such as “Better Get Hit in Your Soul.”
Also: it’s hard to think of a better song name than that, amazing stuff.
Also (also): don’t miss “Boogie Stop Shuffle.”
Then there’s a quieter mode, what I think of as a film noir vibe, that I love from the great jazz artists of this period. “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is a perfect Charles Mingus example.
That’s a quick overview of how I got into this period of jazz music, and eventually started to dive into the music of the greats such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, and Mr. Mingus.
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um
Since I reference it above, I feel compelled to provide you with the only prescription for your fever, which of course is more cowbell.
Some stats & info about Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Jazz, Instrumental Music, Bop
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Mingus Ah Um released? 1959
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #254 out of 1,000
Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.