39. Charles Mingus — The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady (1963)

1. I’ve gotten a taste of more modern pop music sounds, and it’s hard to go back. I like this record. I like almost all of the records in the 1001! But I just don’t have a lot to say about it. C’est la vie.
2. This is a lovely, complex jazz composition, brooding and dark with a lot happening at any given moment. It’s not frantic in the manner of Thelonius Monk or scattered like the Bill Evans Trio, but it’s close on both counts. It feels almost like blending Monk with Duke Ellington; a fuller sound than Monk, a more experimental sound than Duke.
3. I do recommend checking out the liner notes if you give this a spin. Mingus wrote extensive liner notes which are fascinating in and of themselves, but more fascinating is that he asked his psychologist to write a review as well. Liner notes are effectively a dead form; the last notable “liner notes” I can think of would be Frank Ocean’s famous tumblr post prepping the world for the fact that Channel Orange was in part about his bisexuality. We don’t have physical copies anymore; how could we have liner notes? Reading the notes here, I find sadness in that. I miss the days of swiping through the pages of a new CD. I wonder now whether I should check the liner notes of other albums in this list.

One Essential Song:

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