Track Listing

1. Hog Callin' Blues
2. Devil Woman
3. Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am
4. Ecclusiastics
5. Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me
6. Eat That Chicken
7. Passions of a Man
8. "Old" Blues for Walt's Torin [*]
9. Peggy's Blue Skylight [*]
10. Invisible Lady [*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96808 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
Besides the masterfully sloppy music within, this 1961 recording offers two noteworthy elements to the Mingus discography: the presence of Roland Kirk blowing his usual assortment of horn-like oddities, and the presence of Mingus himself on piano (Doug Watkins replaces Mingus on bass). The loose (even for Mingus) environment brings Mingus's vibrant but tense sense of humor to the fore. As usual, his compositions borrow heavily from blues and gospel sources. His quirky, devilish piano work adds a new dimension to his music while Kirk, Booker Ervin, and Jimmy Knepper all contribute solos that are alternately pithy and passionate. Mingus even sings his own idiosyncratic lyrics in a number of spots. The CD reissue adds a long but at times insightful interview with Atlantic head Neshui Ertegun. Not a Mingus essential, but rewarding for its peek into Mingus's complex personality and its compelling blend of bitterness and jocularity. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

Make me wanna holler
Give this one 12 stars! Hot hot hot record! You won't ever find music more alive then this, if you can sit down while Hog callin blues gets going then you're ready for the crypt. Genius genius genius! Stop it! Bebop it! My god this music is almost obscene in it's brilliance and vitality, at times the ecstasy approaches Klezmer territory, at others it's just sooooo blue that no one else should be allowed by law to even try to play the style after 1962. Filled with all the madness and beauty expected from Mingus, it just goes somewhere else. Rock musicians such as Zappa and Beefheart spent their entire careers trying to capture this feel and never even got close, not really even worth mentioning, I only do so in the event you are a rock fan and don't know this music, so buy this and hear the real deal. Still guranteed to scare the elderly, inspire you to holler and commit various acts of social irresponsibility, while still flooring anyone with musically sensitive ears. Glorious glorious music.

po-mo psycho dada din

This is a great album for multiple reasons. But especially worth it for jazz history fans, and Mingus-heads in particular, because of the final track, an interview of Charles Mingus by Nesuhi Ertegun that must be almost half an hour long. (you'll want to change the genre coding on the one track from jazz to spoken word or something like that, so it doesn't interrupt the flow when you shuffle by genre).

Ertegun asks him why he decided to sing on this album. He explains in his reply that he always sings when he plays, they just happened to mike it for this album. I re-listened to some other Mingus albums and, sure enough, there he is in the background, singing, screaming, talking. I also liked when someone comes in, interrupts the interview, because an important call has come in for Ertegun. Mingus tells him, take your call, don't worry, just leave the tape recorder running and I'll keep talking. And he does.

Great stuff. The music is extraordinary too, it would be worth it even without the interview. He's certainly not a musician who would've become famous for his piano playing and singing. But he's a powerful enough personality and a big enough celebrity to do whatever he wants. I love him as a composer and on bass, with Ah Um probably being the best showcase of his real talents, but this is an excellent display of Mingus' gritty, funky, lax side, what you'd hear if you were lucky enough to hear Mingus and friends entertaining themselves at an after-hours party. "Wam Bam Thank You Ma'am" and "Eat That Chicken" are both tremendous, rollicking fun. "Ecclusiastics" starts off boring but gets fun before it ends. "Oh Lord Don't Let Them Drop that Atomic Bomb on Me" is as intense as you would imagine from the title. Passions of a Man is a nice, odd, proto-psychedelic number. Good fun. Having Roland Kirk and Booker Ervin both soloing on sax adds another unique and welcome layer. Buy it, enjoy it, have fun, be safe.

Protest.
Released in '61 at the beginning stages of the burgeoning avant garde jazz movement, OH YEAH marks the times with it's non-violent resistance. But, this is Charles Mingus,irascible, he's been labeled, and in fashion, OH YEAH contains a bit of civil disobediance.

"Hog Callin' Blues" starts out the album, which is of the most fun of all Mingus tunes, and really wails on account of Rahsaan Roland Kirk (who appears throughout OH YEAH).

"Devil Woman" contains Mingus in full blues shout.

"Ecclusiastics" is super charged gospel Mingus, a fun tune with a swingin' churchy hand clappin' break down section.

"Lord,Please Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me" is a fearful, jam, with Mingus audibly pleading with Jesus.

Mingus, as usual manages to cyringe a bit of rye humor in to this albums, and doesn't fail with this one--with the raucous Jelly Roll Morton style parody of minstrel "humor," "Eat That Chicken."

The first inklings of the '60s psychedelic rock genre are fathered with the politically charged and trippy "Passions of a Man."

With the newer reissue, you get a few more songs, most from his 1957 TONITE AT NOON album.

One of my very favorite of all of Mingus' albums, and essential for a full historical retrospect of 1960s America.

Couldn't speak more highly of this one, it's a barn burner.