VERVE

Limited vinyl LP repressing of this 1963 album by the jazz great. Bassist/composer Charles Mingus is one of the most radical figures in American music. This album broke new ground in both genre-defying composition and innovative recording techniques. A six-part suite with dramatic shifts in mood and tempo, the Black Saint and the Sinner Lady features the three-way brass dialogue of trumpets, trombone and tuba, swooping reeds and awe-inspiring rhythm section. Balancing delicate Spanish modes and Ellington like themes, the ensemble breaks into a divine cacophony of group improvisation on par with free jazz giants like Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor. In his best-known essay, „Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung,” Lester Bangs praises, „the experience of the first few listening's to a record so total, so mind-twisting, that you authentically can say you'll never be quite the same again. Black Saint and the Sinner Lady did that, and a very few others. They're events you remember all your life, like your first real orgasm.” This long out-of-print vinyl release has been carefully remastered from the original master tapes.

Mingus's second Impulse! album, released in 1963, was another large-ensemble masterpiece featuring two of the bassist/bandleader's greatest compositions 'Celia' and 'Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul' - plus a famous version of Duke Ellington s 'Mood Indigo.'

Nothing less than one of the great vocal jazz albums, this Grammy-winning 1956 collection showcased a large orchestra arranged by Buddy Bregman and famous versions of 'Miss Otis Regrets,' 'I Get A Kick Out Of You,' 'Every Time We Say Goodbye,' 'Night And And Day,' 'Love For Sale' and 'I've Got You Under My Skin.'

A 1962 set from the Roy Haynes Quartet - which, at the time, consisted of Haynes, Henry Grimes on bass, Tommy Flanagan on piano and Roland Kirk on saxes, manzello, stritch and flutes. The album is a delightful mix of technique in arrangement and performance, with all of the musicians delivering terrific work - Haynes' drumming is absolutely wonderful here, lightly dancing around the other instruments. Flanagan's piano playing is equally light and delicate, and Grimes' bass work is outstanding. There's not much that can be said about Kirk's sax and flute work that hasn't already been said a hundred times.