CHARLES MINGUS — The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (review)

CHARLES MINGUS — The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady album cover Album · 1963 · Progressive Big Band Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Warthur
An avant-big band masterpiece, Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady comprises a series of tracks described as "dances", and it certainly feels as though the music is dancing - with movements ranging from reeling, stumbling drunkenness to dirty, low-down grinding to hysterical spasms of joy and everything in between. With a particularly strong brass section and intriguing compositions, Mingus creates an impression of apparent chaos which on close listens reveal that everything is in fact carefully and regularly orchestrated and composed. To my mind, it sets a clear precedent for a range of experimental music to follow - in particular, Frank Zappa would visit territory much like this in the later days of the first Mothers of Invention lineup, as on albums like Burnt Weeny Sandwich.

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