For Tan

Glad you have picked up Mingus Ah Um, one of Mingus’s inventive joints. You can reassure that you won’t suffer any remorse from it. There is an important missing detail, however, in “Fables Of Faubus.” Columbia Records dropped out the words, and I’ll let you find out why. Mingus then re-recorded the piece with the lyrics included. So here is the “Original Faubus Fables” from Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. You’ll see the huge difference between the two. Of course, you have to pay attention to Mingus’s solo, but Ted Curson’s trumpet growling and Eric Dolphy’s sax shrieking are full of trills and arpeggios. Can’t get enough of that little baby-whining noise Dolphy made at the end. It’s just hilarious every time I listen to it. Mingus’s little speech in the begining, in which he talked to his imagined audience, is witty as well.