Charles Mingus - The Clown [Spain Import]

The Clown is Charles Mingus at his most theatrical and most furious, four long pieces that swing hard and tell stories. This edition is a Spain import.

Released by Atlantic in 1957 and recorded that same year with Jimmy Knepper on trombone, Shafi Hadi on saxophones, Wade Legge on piano and Dannie Richmond on drums, it was a pointed answer to critics who claimed his music did not swing. Mingus picked these four pieces over more intricate ones for exactly that reason, and he counted the album as home to his first recorded blues.

"Haitian Fight Song" opens with Mingus alone on bass before the band crashes in, a protest piece he said he could only play properly while thinking about prejudice and persecution. "Blue Cee" is a church-tinged blues in two keys with a nod to Count Basie, "Reincarnation Of A Lovebird" is his tender, sprawling tribute to Charlie Parker, and the title track features humorist Jean Shepherd improvising a darkly comic tale over the band.

Richmond's drumming pushes and pulls the tempos like elastic, and Knepper's trombone growls with real wit.

It is one of the essential Mingus records of the fifties, angry and funny in equal measure, and it belongs beside Mingus Ah Um on any serious jazz shelf.