Charles Mingus In Paris: The Complete America Session

It could never be easy for Charles Mingus. In the midst of recording “Blue Bird” — a sexy, languorous homage to Charlie Parker’s composition on Charles Mingus In Paris, a document of one 1970 night’s session — the electricity went out. It was the great man’s first stint in a recording studio in seven years, after spending half the ’60s all but invisible, mired in depression and financial problems. Eventually, the electricity problem was solved, and the sextet Mingus had put together for this little-known return eventually plays a glorious 18-minute-plus take on the number. Another highlight comes with two markedly different versions of “Peggy’s Blue Skylight.” After several false starts (all preserved, along with the fast alternate of “Skylight,” on this album’s invaluable second disc), Mingus decides “That’s slow, really,” and the group takes off. They then return to a more measured tempo for the ultimately released version. Paris isn’t quite as thrilling a highwire act as Sunnyside’s 2006 exhumation of the UCLA tapes, but listening to its almost two hours in order reveals a man and band readying themselves for the world again.