Tasked with assembling a
Charles Mingus compilation for the discount-priced best-of series
20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection by drawing selections from the multi-label archives of Universal Music, producer Pat Lawrence understandably has relied mostly on the Impulse! catalog in choosing tracks from albums originally released between 1958 and 1964. Familiar titles include "Theme for Lester Young" (aka "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat"), "Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul," and the piano solo "Myself When I Am Real." A disc like this one is not the place to take chances, of course, and the only mildly risky decision was to devote nearly half the running time to a live take of "Fable of Faubus." But that one track encompasses many of
Mingus' styles, making it also a safe choice for an album intended to give neophytes a taste for what the jazz master's music was like. ~ William Ruhlmann