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The Clown

by Charles Mingus

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The Mingus aggregate that recorded this set lived by the perforations that saxophonist Shafi Hadi sent toward Jimmy Knepper's slippery trombone. If the arrangements for the horns sound Ellingtonian, they're scripted to do so. Mingus played temperately but importantly off the Duke's model for sectional playing here. And Mingus's bass was as wild as ever, especially on the intro to "Haitian Fight Song," which goes at a slow churn here. Hadi and Knepper sound more mainstream than, say, some of Mingus's other brass-reeds combos, but Wade Legge's strange piano voicings created a stormy harmonic frame for the band to thrive in. The title tune may be Mingus's most oddball early composition, with Jean Shepherd narrating a fictional tale of a performing clown as the band mimics and comments on the spoken word. --Andrew Bartlett