From 1972 and 1973, two albums originally released on the CBS/Columbia record label.
"Let My Children Hear Music" features seven original Mingus compositions.
"Charles Mingus And Friends In Concert", originally a double LP set, features a star-studded selection of sidesmen including Gerry Mulligan, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Konitz amongst others.
Digitally remastered and slipcased, and with extensive new notes.

The Lionel Hampton Story is an essential, comprehensive 4-CD retrospective box set compiled and released in 2000 by Proper Records. Spanning over two decades of restless musical activity, the 92-track anthology traces the legendary vibraphonist, drummer, and bandleader's transition from late-1930s Victor small-group swing sessions into his explosive, big band jump-blues era on Decca. Disc 1 highlights Hampton's legendary all-star Victor dates alongside swing icons Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Christian. Discs 2 through 4 chronicle his pioneering 1940s big bands—incubators for early R&B, bop, and soul featuring future masters Illinois Jacquet, Charles Mingus, Dinah Washington, Albert Ammons, and a young Wes Montgomery. Anchored by definitive hits like Flying Home, Hey, Ba-Ba-Re-Bop, Hamp's Boogie Woogie, and Midnight Sun, this release stands as a vital chronicle of swing's evolution into early rhythm & blues.

Recorded in October 1957 in New York City and reissued in expanded form by Avenue Jazz, A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry with Charlie Mingus is one of the most adventurous and ambitious works in Charles Mingus's legendary catalog. Anchored by the sprawling opening epic "Scenes in the City"—featuring evocative spoken-word narration written by Lonnie Elder with Langston Hughes and performed by Melvin Stewart—the album explores the rich intersections between beat poetry, cinematic narrative, and hard bop improvisation. Featuring crucial solos from trombonist Jimmy Knepper, saxophonist Shafi Hadi, pianists Horace Parlan and Bob Hammer, and drummer Dannie Richmond, this definitive edition includes rare unreleased takes ("Wouldn't You", "Bounce") and an alternate take of "Slippers".

Originally recorded in August 1957 in New York City and reissued in 1986 on Bethlehem Records, East Coasting is a vital landmark session in the discography of legendary bassist and composer Charles Mingus. Recorded just months after his seminal Tijuana Moods sessions, the album features a rare and historical alignment with pianist Bill Evans alongside long-time Mingus collaborators Jimmy Knepper, Shafi Hadi, Dannie Richmond, and trumpeter Clarence Shaw. From extended compositional masterworks like "West Coast Ghost" and "Celia" to blues-inflected hard bop pieces like the title track and "Fifty-First Street Blues," the album demonstrates Mingus's brilliant balance of structured ensemble writing and fiery collective improvisation.

Recorded in Monster, the Netherlands in June 1982 for Timeless Records, Melodic Excursions strips away the rhythm section to feature long-time collaborators George Adams and Don Pullen in an intimate tenor saxophone and piano duo setting. Having established their fierce chemistry together in Charles Mingus's mid-70s groups and their own famed quartet with Dannie Richmond and Cameron Brown, this rare duo album highlights their incredible balance between soulful warmth and blues-rooted avant-garde explosive power. From the tender gospel spirituality of God Has Smiled On Me to the blistering, percussive cluster runs of Playground Uptown And Downtown and Decisions, Adams and Pullen deliver a masterclass in post-bop dialogics.

Hand to Hand is an exhilarating 1980 post-bop and free-jazz quartet/quintet session led by tenor saxophonist George Adams and drummer Dannie Richmond, recorded in Milan for the Italian label Soul Note. Steeped in the blues-rooted yet fiery avant-garde tradition established during their years with Charles Mingus, Adams and Richmond assemble a stellar group featuring trombonist Jimmy Knepper, pianist Hugh Lawson, and bassist Mike Richmond. Balancing hard-swinging bop sensibilities with fiery, explosive solos and soulful melodies, the album features extended, expansive workouts including Lawson's driving openers The Cloocker and Joobubie, Adams' impassioned Yamani's Passion, and Richmond's tender, dedicated ballad For Dee J.

The Clown was Charles Mingus' second masterpiece in a row, upping the already intense emotional commitment of Pithecanthropus Erectus and burning with righteous anger and frustration. With Pithecanthropus, Mingus displayed a gift for airtight, focused arrangements that nonetheless allowed his players great freedom to add to the established mood of each piece. The Clown refines and heightens that gift; instead of just writing heads that provide launch points for solos, Mingus tries to evoke something specific with every piece, and even his most impressionistic forays have a strong storytelling quality.

On Newport Rebels, a legendary collective of American jazz icons, generational multi-instrumentalists, and masterfully panoramic musical visionaries align under the historic banner of the Jazz Artists Guild to deliver a towering, historically volcanic, and profoundly revolutionary studio document. Supervised by Charles Mingus and Max Roach in late 1960, and originally issued on Nat Hentoff's vanguard independent imprint Candid Records, this monumental milestone captures the fierce, high-octane spirit of the alternative festival organized in protest of Newport's commercialization. Spanning nearly 40 minutes of immaculate high-fidelity spatial design, the 5-track expansive landscape operates with an intense, beautifully syncopated, and masterfully balanced cross-generational kinetic energy. The session functions as a brilliant sonic crucible, weaponizing the deep bass telemetry of Mingus and the explosive drumming paths of Roach alongside swing era giant Roy Eldridge, bebop innovator Kenny Dorham, and the revolutionary alto saxophone phrasing of Eric Dolphy. From the soaring blues framework of the historic opener Mysterious Blues and Booker Little's intricate modal march Cliff Walk to Abbey Lincoln's intensely dramatic, space-conscious vocal architecture on T'ain't Nobody's Bizness if I Do, this pristine archive remains an indispensable masterpiece for serious bop purists and avant-garde jazz collectors worldwide.

On Birdland 1953, the legendary American piano trailblazer, bebop architect, and masterfully panoramic jazz genius Bud Powell commands the stage to deliver a towering, historically volcanic, and profoundly moving live archive document. Released as a comprehensive three-disc box set in 2013 by the avant-garde legacy imprint ESP-Disk, this monumental milestone stands as an exceptionally fluid, high-octane monument capturing Powell’s historic live radio broadcasts from the epicenter of modern jazz during a pivotal year in his creative journey. Spanning nearly three hours of vintage spatial design across 49 tracks, the landscape operates with an intense, beautifully syncopated, and masterfully balanced kinetic energy. Powell acts as a brilliant sonic visionary, weaponizing his lightning-fast right-hand linear runs, complex harmonic chordal substitutions, and uninhibited improvisational velocity—firing off magnificent tracking landmarks like his own signature masterpieces Dance of the Infidels, Un Poco Loco, and Parisian Thoroughfare, alongside high-voltage readings of standard vehicles like Tea for Two and classic bebop anthems like Ornithology and Salt Peanuts. This live radio archive remains an indispensable masterpiece for serious jazz purists, bebop historians, and piano jazz collectors worldwide.

On Communique, two of the absolute monoliths and defining conceptualists of avant-garde history—soprano saxophone icon Steve Lacy and visionary piano master Mal Waldron—reconverge in the studio to deliver a deeply cerebral, intimate, and masterfully synchronized duo document. Released in 1997 by Giovanni Bonandrini’s legendary Italian vanguard imprint Soul Note, this brilliant milestone captures their world-renowned telepathic duo language operating at its absolute peak. Spanning nearly 64 minutes of immaculate high-fidelity spatial design, the 11-track landscape operates with a brooding, austere, and beautifully balanced kinetic energy. Recorded at Milan's Mu Rec Studio, the master improvisers run through a highly sophisticated selection of classic compositions by foundational mentors like Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Elmo Hope, alongside brilliant, stark originals from both artists—firing off stunning duo layouts like Monk's playful angles on Who Knows and Blue Monk, Mingus's rich harmonic tapestry on Peggy's Blue Skylight, and the sparse, deeply spatial structural dialogue of the title track Communique. Driven by Lacy's biting, laser-focused soprano geometry and Waldron's legendary, heavy, and hypnotic rhythmic block repetitions, this pristine archive remains an indispensable masterpiece for serious free jazz purists and creative music collectors worldwide.

The Complete Gus Wildi Recordings is a spectacularly expressive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized jazz compilation masterpiece centering on the iconic harmonic architect and piano vanguard monarch Bill Evans, digitally preserved and released as a definitive 2-CD anthology in 2004 under the specialized independent archival preservation imprint Lone Hill Jazz. Spanning over 2 hours and 33 minutes of breathtakingly intense, conceptually profound instrumental and vocal interactions across 27 tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute peak monument in late-1950s hard-bop, modal, and cool jazz archaeology. This rare compilation gathers a collection of seminal New York recording sessions funded or recorded by independent engineer/producer Gus Wildi between 1956 and 1959, documenting Evans' astonishing development during the most explosive, metamorphic era of his historic career.

Unveiling a lost treasure from the legendary Charles Mingus, “Reincarnations” offers a captivating glimpse into the groundbreaking 1960 Candid Records sessions. This isn’t just another compilation; it’s a masterfully curated collection of unearthed and unreleased gems, meticulously assembled to take its rightful place among Mingus’s finest works. Prepare to be immersed in the raw energy and unbridled creativity that defined this pivotal era in Mingus’s career.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is one of the greatest achievements in orchestration by any composer in jazz history. Charles Mingus consciously designed the six-part ballet as his magnum opus, and – implied in his famous inclusion of liner notes by his psychologist – it's as much an examination of his own tortured psyche as it is a conceptual piece about love and struggle. It veers between so many emotions that it defies easy encapsulation; for that matter, it can be difficult just to assimilate in the first place. Yet the work soon reveals itself as a masterpiece of rich, multi-layered texture and swirling tonal colors, manipulated with a painter's attention to detail. There are a few stylistic reference points – Ellington, the contemporary avant-garde, several flamenco guitar breaks – but the totality is quite unlike what came before it. Mingus relies heavily on the timbral contrasts between expressively vocal-like muted brass, a rumbling mass of low voices (including tuba and baritone sax), and achingly lyrical upper woodwinds, highlighted by altoist Charlie Mariano.

Mingus Ah Um catapulted Charles Mingus from a much-discussed semi-underground figure to a near-universally accepted and acclaimed leader in modern jazz. Perhaps that's why his Columbia follow-up, Mingus Dynasty, is often overlooked in his canon - it's lost in the shadow of its legendary predecessor, both because of that album's achievement and the fact that it's just a notch below the uppermost echelon of Mingus' work. Having said that, Mingus Dynasty is still an excellent album; in fact, it's a testament to just how high a level Mingus was working on that an album of this caliber could have gotten lost in the shuffle. There's a definite soundtrack quality to a great deal of the music here, and indeed the majority of Mingus' originals here were composed for film and television scores and an expanded, nine- to ten-piece group…