Ornate, complex, breathtaking.
I was eating lunch in a sandwich joint up in Northbeach when I noticed the background music. Complex swing jazz compositions that would pivot off into jagged, squawking atonal horn stabs, momentarily droop into impressionistic piano melodies, or suddenly stop on a dime and pivot into classical-sounding passages before soon veering back. I had to ask the waiter what it was.
I feel like this is one of those albums that *had* to exist. It was out there somewhere, waiting, until Mingus discovered it and brought it to us. There's parts of it that are conventional—at least to the extent that Mingus's genius could be conventional—but as a whole, nothing else is quite like it.
I later read that Mingus considered this his best album. It makes sense. It's a real showstopper.
