The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

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The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady cover
Studio album by Charles Mingus
Released 1963
Recorded 20 January 1963
Genre Jazz
Length 39:32
Label Impulse!
Producer Bob Thiele
Professional reviews
Charles Mingus chronology
Oh Yeah
(1961)		 The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
(1963)		 Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
(1963)

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a 1963 jazz composition and album by bassist Charles Mingus. The piece consists of a single six-part suite performed by an eleven-piece band. An intensely emotional work, it displays Mingus' skill as composer, orchestrator, and technician.

Written as a ballet, the work borrows from Ellingtonian and Latin sources, but creates a unique orchestral style that Mingus called "ethnic folk-dance music". The orchestrations (described as "one of the greatest achievements [...] by any composer in jazz history" by the All Music Guide) are rich and multi-layered. Mingus' perfectionism led to extensive use of studio overdubbing techniques, the first for a jazz album.[citation needed] The track A features the tuba virtuoso Don Butterfield playing a contrabass trombone

The album liner notes were provided by Mingus' psychotherapist, Dr. Edmund Pollock.

Contents

[edit] Reception

Q (2/96, p.109) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...a mixture of haunting bluesiness, dancing vivacity, and moments of Andalusian heat..."

The website Rate Your Music, which aggregates reviews from reviewers and users alike, has the album ranked as the #3 album of all time, behind Abbey Road and Revolver.[1]

Piero Scaruffi ranks the album as the #1 jazz album of all time.[2]

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Track A — Solo Dancer" –6:20
    "Stop! Look! and Listen, Sinner Jim Whitney!"
  2. "Track B — Duet Solo Dancers" –6:25
    "Hearts' Beat and Shades in Physical Embraces"
  3. "Track C — Group Dancers" –7:00
    "(Soul Fusion) Freewoman and Oh, This Freedom's Slave Cries"
  4. –17:52
    "Mode D — Trio and Group Dancers"
    "Stop! Look! and Sing Songs of Revolutions!"
    "Mode E — Single Solos and Group Dance"
    "Saint and Sinner Join in Merriment on Battle Front"
    "Mode F — Group and Solo Dance"
    "Of Love, Pain, and Passioned Revolt, then Farewell, My Beloved, 'til It's Freedom Day"

(All songs by Mingus; Bob Hammer helped in music arrangements. Recorded in New York City on 20 January 1963 by Bob Simpson.)

[edit] Personnel

[edit] References

  1. ^ Top Albums of All-time, Rate Your Music
  2. ^ The Best Jazz Albums as selected by Piero Scaruffi
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