Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And Sinner Lady VS Pharoah Sanders - Karma

Gotta go with Mingus on this one. I love Pharoah, but it's rare that I've got a half hour to devote to a single track, thus of his impossibly awesome Impulse! discography (I have everything from Tauhid through Live At The East, plus Izipho Zam, which was on Strata-East), Thembi is the one I actually play the most.

I woulda put Karma up against let my cHILdreN HEar music

i wanted these 2

i refuse to choose. the creator has a master plan, peace and harmony for every man

I would take Karma over practically any other album in existence so this poll ain't too hard for me

Any album half as good as Black Saint I've got to hear. I never got around to Sanders' stuff because I wasn't that impressed with his work with Coltrane. But Karma sounds like something special, can't believe I never heard it. Looks like Scaruffi has it at #28 on his jazz list (Black Saint is #1), and #57 on the Acclaimed 1969 list.

Earlier in the year I checked out some others from that era, Alice Coltrane - Ptah the El Daoud, Charlie Haden - Liberation Music Orchestra, Don Cherry - Mu, Albert Ayler Trio - Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe, Art Ensemble of Chicago - Les Stances A Sophie, Carla Bley - Escalator Over The Hill. Nothing touched Mingus or Coltrane to my ears, but I'd be happy to discover something that did. I hadn't heard Sonny Sharrock - Black Woman yet either.

i don't know what coltrane you like, but the alice and pharoah picks seem kinda minor in comparison to the obvious, entry level ones, cf journey in satchidananda for something with both. hearing either on the village vanguard records would make me want to explore, but their own lps are pretty different. 'crescent' is as close in character as a coltrane record gets to either alice or pharoah's main solo stuff, i think.

Karma

Picked up a used copy of Karma. Nice bells and vocal acrobatics. It doesn't really have much in common with the Mingus album though. I don't seem to see the point in comparing.

someone should do a mingus albums poll -- maybe w/out including this one tho cuz i think it would steal all the votes (unfairly imo)

i would vote mingus ah um in such a poll

i would vote mingus x5

Karma is great, but how is this not Black Saint in a walk? Plus Antibes. How is this not Antibes?

antibes i would also take over black saint fwiw

I already did such a poll
Charles Mingus - The Albums Poll!

and i participated. oh well

heh

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

so right, but so wrong.

I couldn't choose between these!

Good thing we weren't forced to!

so right, but so wrong.
^^^

black saint and sinner lady is my favourite music ever made

I dont even remember if I voted in the end.

Been on a bit of a jazz binge (total dilettante until now tbh) and I love "Black Saint..." but the version I have is let down by everything being panned hard to the left or right. Are all versions like this?

Mine is, but I don't see why that's a problem? Due to Mingus' arrangement style, most of the time there are horns playing at the same time on both channels, so it doesn't sound one-sided like some other 60s albums with heavy stereo panning.

Horns in one channel, reeds in another iirc

There's a mono version on vinyl that came out back in '63 at the same time as the stereo; they pop up on ebay pretty regularly. But I believe all the Impulse records were recorded and mixed for stereo, and that the monos were a fold down of those stereo recordings onto one track. Could be wrong, but I know that's what I read at some point a few years back.

I'd read that too, that no dedicated mono mixes of Impulse! recordings were ever made. Which is too bad, because the separation on many of the Coltrane quartet recordings is really awkward and annoying.

Mingus vs Monk would be hard for me, but Sanders nah, it just sounds like hippy shit.

I really like 'Karma' but it is really hard to mess with any of the top tier Mingus albums as the music is just so dense and amazing. The Sanders record is great, but it's pretty hippy spiritual boogaloo as a composition. Not that all that is a bad thing, the playing is really great. The Mingus record has a whole lot more going on and is a rare for that time illustration of a jazz composer using the studio as a tool.