What a gorgeous piece of music. “Goodbye, Pork-Pie Hat” is a 1959 composition, written by jazz composer and bassist Charles Mingus, as en elegy for saxophonist LESTER YOUNG (“Pres”), 1909-1959. Mingus wrote and recorded it immediately after Pres died, for one of his peak albums, Mingus Ah Um. It is full of love, loss and …
The music of Charles Mingus is famously powerful, complex, and energetic. Of the many fine albums he recorded, Mingus Ah Um (1959) is unique in that the vitality of the music is expressed with an unrelenting sureness of purpose and a masterful control. Every note seems placed precisely where and how it should be and …