Album of the day (#3760): Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus

[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1959.
Country:
Overall rank: 253
Average rating: 85/100 (from 625 votes).

Tracks:
1. Better Git It In Your Soul
2. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
3. Boogie Stop Shuffle
4. Self-Portrait In Three Colors
5. Open Letter To Duke
6. Bird Calls
7. Fables Of Faubus
8. Pussy Cat Dues
9. Jelly Roll

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[Mercury]

Noice! This is truly awesome! I'm no expert on Mingus or Jazz or 50s music, and of all these facts I am ashamed, but this is an album that I recently listened to (maybe 3 months ago) and it blew me mind.
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-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[EyeKanFly]

*chef's kiss*
Love this album, bought it years ago and it came packaged with Mingus Dynasty as "Better Get Hit in Your Soul" (yes, "Hit". They literally spelled one of the songs wrong in the title of the album...). I had heard of Mingus so I bought the (double) album, but I didn't recognize the title nor artwork, so I didn't realize that half of it was among Mingus' best. Dynasty is solid too but Ah Um is a masterpiece.

On BEA, I don't think I'd qualify myself as a jazz expert, but I do listen to significantly more jazz than most people around me in my life, and this is one of the two albums I recommend to people who think they don't like jazz (the other being A Love Supreme). I've never heard negative feedback yet for Mingus, though I have for Coltrane.

One thing that's wonderful about this album which isn't necessarily the case for many jazz albums is that you can pick any song out of this and it's fantastic on its own. I know "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and "Fables of Faubus" are the highlights (PLEASE listen to the alternate version of the latter song with lyrics, one of Mingus' few compositions with lyrics and it's fucking scathing. As it rightfully should be), but for me "Better Get It in Your Soul" is my favorite, with "Open Letter to Duke" pretty close.
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51 Washington, D.C. albums!

[Hayden]

[EyeKanFly]

[kokkinos]

Coltrane and Miles were the starting points for me as well and I had no luck with either of them. Then came Mingus, who I found much more accessible indeed - and to this day remains much more enjoyable than the other two giants.

[DommeDamian]

overall, pretty good for my taste in jazz.
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[Fischman]

This was my first Mingus album and it proved to be a great introduction.
Worth every bit of the praise that gets heaped upon it.

[LedZep]

Agreed, it's one of the most popular jazz albums ever and it's every bit as good as people say. It's interesting that you found Mingus to be more accessible than Miles, kokkinos. My first jazz album was of course Kind of Blue, I still find that one to be more accessible than anything Mingus has done.
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Finally updated the overall chart

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[kokkinos]

A funny coincidence that you bring this up today, I was stuck on a train for 8+ hours and all three came into play after a very, very long time. (Can't say jazz is my favourite genre, but I've always found it the best company when travelling alone, you reach your destination in no time.)
Among other considerations, there's a mental excercise I occasionally enjoy while listening to music, I was thinking how creating a character based strictly on their music -nothing to do with the artist himself or his personality - would be. (Slightly off-topic, I know, but I'll leave it here anyhow.)
Mingus would be the life and soul of the party, the one that tells the best jokes, gets the ladies etc.
Coltrane would be the spiritual/wise one, a discussion with him is an eye-opening experience, everyone around him becomes a better person.
Miles would also be a thinker, but one that likes keeping his wisdom for himself, he's always distracted, lost in his thoughts, as his mind is already two steps ahead and can't bother wasting his time with mundane things.
Anyway, enough babbling, returning to the point of accessibility, I guess it depends heavily on one's background. I think coming from rock music -including its predecessors - helps tremendously with Mingus - I mean, he even has an album named Blues & Roots. If we accept the cliche that post-rock is "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes", Mingus does pretty much the opposite.
Also, there's another aspect one needs to take into account, if I had to recommend one of those three to a newcomer, my answer would depend on how deep he would like to go.
If I know he will listen to one album and stop, I'll say Mingus, you can't go wrong no matter which you pick.
If I know he is willing to go through the entire catalogue, then it's easily Miles, he has the widest range, there's something for everyone - but still wouldn't expect Kind of Blue to win anyone over at first try, I would bet on his fusion stuff.
It goes without saying that there are tons of other viable choices, I'm narrowing it down to those three for discussion's sake.