This week on Night Lights we feature the early music of Charles Mingus, taken from an Uptown Records CD entitled “Charles ‘Baron’ Mingus: West Coast Recordings, 1945-49.” Musicologist Stefano Zenni has an interesting website devoted to this little-heard period of Mingus’ music, which includes jump blues, Ellingtonian ballads, bop, and quasi-third stream pieces. Legendary producer Chuck Nessa, who did a great deal of work on this CD (it was a five-year project, and comes with a 96-page booklet replete with biographies of all the musicians and many photos as well) also did an interview with Blue Lake Public Radio dj Lazaro Vega that offers more detail on this amazing anthology.
Music Heard On This Episode
Miss D.D.
Mary Lou Williams — Black Christ of the Andes (Smithsonian Folkways, 1964)
