Singleversity #23

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 83.

MA:



Charles Mingus - "Track C - Group Dancers; (Soul Fusion) Freewoman and Oh, This Freedom's Slave Cries" - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse! 1963)

After years of ridiculous delay, I finally went out of my way to collect a chunk of Charles Mingus’s fascinating discography. Though I honestly love every second of every album so far, it’s hard for any of them to top the tonally saturated, incredibly textural music of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady from 1963. Mingus’s eleven-piece band pirouettes through shifting rhythms, harmonic bliss and jarring dissonance with grace that could only be written as a ballet. Absolutely stunning and idiosyncratic.

PM:



Is it better to pay tribute to Max Roach by showing what he can do with a full set or just a foot cymbal? I opted for the latter to pay my respects, as Roach duly does the same to Papa Jo Jones (possibly during Jones’ 1985 American Jazz Masters fellowship award?). The North Carolina native moved to Brooklyn in 1928 and his distinguished drumming career includes backing up Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis to name but a few.