Charles Mingus' Finest Hour, while a fine and eccentric collection of music, is only his finest hour of music on the labels owned by Universal-Emarcy, Mercury, Verve, and a few others. These include sessions where
Lionel Hampton ( and not
Mingus) was the bandleader. No matter. The majority, and the best of the material here, comes from the wonderful
Pre-Bird set issued on Emarcy with
Ted Curson,
Marcus Belgrave and many others in a 25-piece orchestra that played
Mingus compositions written before he met
Charlie Parker. The other stuff comes from live concerts including some fine European sounds with
Eric Dolphy, and some of the Bethlehem material. This is a decent look at a strange period between periods -- between Atlantic and Columbia -- for the giant one. ~ Thom Jurek