The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

It's jazz, so it's kinda hard to rate - there is a boatload of stuff going on here, and the overarching theme seems to be the soundtrack to an imaginary movie about a bunch of different dancers and what they get up to.
Not for the faint hearted, but I enjoyed this for my morning drive today.

i enjoyed it

Damn, this album was an experience! I absolutely loved that!

I love avant-garde and experimental jazz, but I’ve got embarrassingly little knowledge of the genre as a whole. There are a lot of blind spots in my jazz listening history, so I really appreciate that this project is slowly filling them in.

I’d never listened to him before and really enjoyed this album.

Transcendent. One of my favorites from Mingus

Very technically impressive but I felt nothing. Almost felt too much like showing off.

A harsh 3, possibly 4 on another listen

3.5 stars.

Love the concept. As someone who doesn't know much about jazz, I don't feel qualified to critique this is. I enjoyed it for the most part - some sections were a bit challenging, but I like a challenge. This is my first jazz album of the project, so I'd love to come back to it once I've heard more to see how my opinion changes.

If this is the sort of thing that you like, then I bet you’ll really like this sort of thing.
To me, it sounds like a bunch of long-legged birds being slowly murdered in a swamp.
And I don’t like that sort of thing.

Not the biggest fan of jazz, but this was ok I guess. If nothing else, it fit with the frenetic energy of my 45-minute prep period today.

A good jazz album without too much frilly garbage. Pretty enjoyable. 4/5

Oh yeah! What a classic!
Such an amazing writer and arranger and playing a mean bass as well!
These pieces are so steeped in emotion and played so well by this band.
I haven’t heard this in a while and definitely getting a lot out of it this listen.
There’s a lot to absorb each listen but that just keeps one going back for more!
I hope there are other albums on this list by Mingus because this guy wrote and recorded a lot of great music!

Avant-garde jazz parts just aren't for me. The rest is cool, I could hear various styles but don't understand Jazz enough to rate this higher. 2.5/5. Raising to 3.

Never thought I would rate a jazz album 5 stars. Extra star for the cover!

That was a difficult task! I was somewhat familiar with Charles Mingus and knew that there was “The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady,” but as far as I can remember, I hadn't heard that album yet. It only contains four tracks, which are arranged similarly to a ballet suite, which I find an interesting approach. I also like the instrumentation and production, but what really bothers me are the constantly overloaded arrangements. It's too exciting for easy listening, but also too inconsistent to be able to concentrate on. It was probably fun live (with a dancing squad?), but I really can't see any context in which I would appreciate this record.

Really exceptional stuff, highest 4 I can give - not fully connected after three listens but I think ideally I would need to read the liner notes and maybe give it another few listens before I'm there at a 5.

4.5

This is a 4.5 stars rounded up. I thought this was fantastic. I'm not usually into experimental/avant-garde jazz, this works in so well.

Good stuff

I found this quite a relaxing album to have on whilst working.

I particularly enjoyed the breeziness of track c - group dancers. That track captured lots of different styles and really conveyed energy