Charles Mingus Sextet With Eric Dolphy

by Britt Robson

Sue Mingus keeps unearthing obscure treasures from her late husband’s closet, and multiple live recordings by this sextet have been available for decades. So why is Cornell 1964 a must-have Mingus disc? Because, as jazz critic Gary Giddins explains in his spot-on liner notes, “Here is the sound of Mingus elated,” a rare thing for this legendarily irascible genius. The result is a combustible, daring, harmonically dense, and innovative concert with an additional radiance of joy. Eric Dolphy’s bass clarinet is especially perceptive and incendiary on two half-hour-long sociopolitical bonfires, “Fables of Faubus” and “Meditations,” and the sextet lends an ecstatic woof and glide to Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train.”