The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

I don't get jazz at the best of times, but experimental jazz like this is 85% just discordant noise to me. I liked the bit of Spanish guitar playing we got briefly.

If I am to judge this against jazz the generator has previously thrown at me, I enjoyed it (a tiny bit) more than Bill Evans and less than Dave Brubeck so...

2/5

Detektiv-musikk!

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is my favorite jazz album and one of my favorite albums of all time. Charles Mingus was the first jazz artist that fully clicked for me. I had listened to some jazz before him and enjoyed it, but his music was the first that I felt like I connected to and really fell in love with. This album is so unique and perfect. It returns to the same motifs and themes and sucks you down deeper into it. It feels almost hypnotic. It’s a full experience in a way that the best albums are

well yeah It's a jazz album

I think I just found the kind of jazz I like!

A tale of two halves. After 3 minutes, I was waiting for it to be done. Those first two sections are, for lack of a better term, awful. I would never subject my ears to that again. But then we get to the last two tracks and it changes significantly. Those weren't just fine, they were genuinely amazing. The 18 minute section might just be my favorite. I have never ran into the problem before. Half the album is bad and the other half is great. What to do what to do. Well, you already know what I did, but I don't. I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

Dis good Mingus

vraški dobar džez!

Favorite songs: Track B - Duete Solo Dancers, Track A - Solo Dancer

Least favorite songs: Medley: Mode D - Trio and Group Dancers/ Mode E - Single Solos and Group Dance/Mode F - Group and Solo Dance

3/5

This album is cool—and it's a grower.
Trying to listen to it, preparing for a bike ride, eating a bowl of porridge at 7:30 a.m. was a bit tough; my mind couldn't keep up.
But sitting in the garden on a warm evening with a cold beer and the barbecue going, it all clicked. The album is packed with great sounds—from the flamenco guitar and piano to the incredible noise coming from that trombone.
You might want to treat it as background music, but it constantly pulls you back in. The performance feels so spontaneous I can’t imagine them playing the same thing twice. This is definitely going on my playlist for when I want to impress people.
4½

Better than Coldplay

The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady is an album that had a lot going for it but was held back by one simple thing. This album certainly did have a lot of variety for just having 4 songs. There was the typical jazz music, a point where it had that odd stringed instrument (i don't know if its a guitar or not) and even some very Clair De Lune sounding piano parts. I do like a lot of those aspects but the album just needed to do one thing to be great which it did not do, That is GET IT'S CRAP TOGETHER. This album felt like it had barely any composition as there was just sounds everywhere and it could get annoying. It is a shame since this album could have been a 4 star album, it just needed to fix this issue.
Best Song: Track C-Group Dancers
Worst Song: Track A-Solo Dancer

Amazing musicianship but I found this VERY stressful to listen to.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a steamroller of a record, a steamy soundtrack to some sort of excessive yet controlled bash, a cosmopolitan assembly, a rooftop brawl. A fearsome lot is going on on this album, but the main point is understood: the center couldn't hold, but the collapse has a beauty, a logic of its own. Mingus put together one of the greatest albums of all time w/ this four-piece masterpiece, and I do not tire of listening to it. Strangely too, it fits more moods than you'd initially think: there's quiet in it, there's stillness, there's a supported contemplativeness, particularly at the outset of the third movement. The ever-fertile touch is Jay Berliner's Spanish guitar work. America's composer after Duke and Monk is Mingus.

Enregistré en 1963 par le volcanique Charles Mingus, "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady", est un ballet sans danseurs, une psychanalyse sans divan, un cri du coeur et de l'âme orchestré avec une précision de maître.

Charles Mingus a conçu "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady", non pas comme une collection de morceaux, mais comme une suite continue, une seule et même pièce en six mouvements fluides et interconnectés. Il fusionne la ferveur du gospel, la sensualité du blues, la sophistication de la musique de chambre classique et, de manière saisissante, les couleurs ardentes du flamenco, incarnées par la guitare de Jay Berliner. Ce dernier n'est pas un simple soliste, il est le contrepoint, l'âme espagnole qui dialogue avec la fureur cuivrée du big band.

La structure de l'œuvre est un tour de force. Les thèmes apparaissent, se transforment, disparaissent pour mieux resurgir sous une autre forme. Les sections de cuivres dialoguent avec une puissance dramatique, les saxophones (portés par un Charlie Mariano impérial) pleurent et hurlent, tandis que la section rythmique, menée par la contrebasse tellurique de Charles Mingus et la batterie inventive de Dannie Richmond, est le moteur implacable de cette machine musicale complexe. L'album est une succession de climats, passant sans prévenir de la tendresse la plus désarmante à des explosions de colère chaotiques, d'une sensualité moite à une angoisse quasi palpable. C'est une musique incroyablement visuelle, qui évoque la passion, le conflit, la danse, la prière et la lutte intérieure. Les célèbres notes de pochette, rédigées par le psychologue de Mingus, le Dr. Edmund Pollock, ne font que confirmer cette dimension : nous assistons à une mise à nu, à l'exploration des dualités qui animent le compositeur – le "Saint" et le "Pécheur".

En conclusion, "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" reste l'un des sommets absolus de la musique du XXe siècle. L'album ne contient pas de "tube" facile, pas de mélodie que l'on fredonne distraitement, c'est une oeuvre dense, touffue, qui ne laisse que peu de répit à l'auditeur. Elle exige une écoute active, une concentration de tous les instants. Par moments, la superposition des couches sonores, la tension permanente et le flot ininterrompu d'idées peuvent devenir étouffants.

C'est un voyage exigeant et parfois ardu, mais dont la récompense est immense. Charles Mingus y a gravé son testament artistique, une oeuvre-monde d'une richesse inépuisable qui continue de fasciner, de dérouter et d'émouvoir plus de soixante ans après sa création. Ce n'est pas seulement un disque à écouter, c'est une expérience à vivre.

Un 3 sur 5

What a freaking journey, man. This album takes you through so many moods, at times switching them up all rapid-fire like, but with a real sense of narrative behind it all. I could not tell you exactly what the intended story about - all I know is it's a ballet with a black saint and a sinner lady somewhere in there - but the emotional beats, the musical callbacks, the cathartic fuckin ending, they're all pretty evocative even without any lyrics. Hell, I'd consider the Spanish guitar as its own character the way its appearance (and later reappearance) had me hyped the fuck out. Incredible stuff that goes beyond just jazz here. Love the way everything comes together.

It'll need a few more listens to fully digest, especially the more cacophonic parts, but I feel good about a 5 given the peaks it had on these first two listens

Great album. It manages to be very chaotic but seemingly organised at the same time. For how 'out there' his music is, it is remarkably easy to digest. Don't really listen to Mingus that much, but I don't really know why this is the release that everyone seems to drool over. I personally like The Clown and Ah Um better. Still a great album, but it doesn't win me over like some other jazz records do.

Extraordinary record combining social history, outre jazz and remarkable songwriting

Mostly good sometimes great, often too far out there for me.

Magnificent, incredible, indestructible. This album has some of the best musical moments I've ever heard, being the perfect balance of suave and sleazy jazz that makes me want to get up and dance while also making me want to bawl my eyes out all within seconds of each other, and it does it to such a seamless degree on top of it all. Everything fits, every player is in top form, every note means something, and this album is incredible. The hints of Spanish guitar, among other genres, are just cherries on top.