[rayword45]

Day 79: The Clown by Charles Mingus (Album Choice: Phillip S.)

Since I'm not in school today I should get through at least one more album. For the hell of it, let's do some jazz. The last straight jazz album was Kind Of Blue during the summer and my opinion was middling compared to the usual universal acclaim. The few songs I've heard by this guy I've been much more partial to however (Goodbye Pork Pie Hat to name one). I need to explore more in the way of jazz anyways so it's good to kill an album here.

My memory of Kind of Blue at this point is pretty faded, so my comparisons will be pretty trite, but if anything, this album is much, much less subdued with a groovy swing feel, some use of dissonance on occasion and a lot of great bass soloing, which I prefer to trumpet noodling I must say. The energetic sound to this album is one that I greatly prefer to the cool jazz of Kind Of Blue. Haitian Fight Song in particularly is explosive for all of its 12 minutes and the bass solo is the best one on the album. The title track is fairly experimental and has a wonderful circusesque vibe to the instrumental though the spoken word piece is rather draggy (though the ending is brilliant). The other two tracks are nice, but I don't feel inclined to write about them.

That was a pretty good album. I liked a jazz album. I feel good about my music taste now.

Best Track: Haitian Fight Song
Rating: 7.5/10