Consumer Guide Album
Charles Mingus: Three or Four Shades of Blue [Atlantic, 1977]
Mingus's elitist aesthetic theories have always put me off his music, so when I'm told that the oldies on side one have been recorded with more fire in the past, I can only respond that now I'll want to hear them for myself. Side two is the best composed bebop I've come across all year; Larry Coryell and Sonny Fortune contribute their sharpest performances since fusion became commercial, and that's the least of it.
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