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Mingus Ah Um

Mingus Ah Um was the first jazz album I fell in love with, and, for many years, the only one I owned. I found my way to it via a circuitous route. When I was at university, one of my favourite bands was Camper Van Beethoven. Having persuaded a friend of their merits, he bought an LP they had made with avant-garde guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, and then another record that Chadbourne had made with Brian Ritchie and Victor De Lorenzo of Violent Femmes: Corpses Of Foreign War. The latter album included an entertaining version of Mingus's 'Fables of Faubus'.

I had meanwhile read some of Lester Bangs' praise of Mingus' music, so, when I picked up a cassette of Mingus Ah Um somewhere in London ca. 1989 and found it contained 'Fables of Faubus', I bought it. As a listener with no previous jazz experience, I was delighted to find it immediately accessible and enjoyable. I didn't have the same instant gratification thereafter with my first tentative forays into the work of Miles Davis & John Coltrane, and it was over a decade until I tried dipping some toes into that pool again.

My CD copy of the album dates back to the late '90s. It sounds fantastic, as the cassette had also done: the band's playing and Teo Macero's recording and production are outstanding - it never sounds anything but fresh, new and alive. My favourite tracks: all of them!

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