The reissue of this, and several other Candid albums, is to be welcomed – not only for the superb quality of the remastering but also for the music. And, in the present case, the speech content. Given free rein by producer Nat Hentoff, who for the space of a mere eight months or so had a mandate to record who and what he considered meaningful, Mingus elected not only to dim the lights (an idea pioneered by Miles in 1954) but to introduce his music and his sidemen to an imaginary studio audience. The greater relaxation achieved thereby resulted in some magnificent seat-of-the-pants playing by a quartet that had been working together (often augmented by others) for the best part of a year, and their familiarity with the material and each other created a unique document. The four long tracks are all equally gripping, from the dynamic looseness of the blues ‘Folk Forms No.1’ to the hectic superbop of ‘All The Things…’ (maybe you know Mingus’s new title). Sandwiched between these and the announcements, ‘What Love’ is this thing called a contrafact, with not only much out-of-tempo ensemble work but the famous “conversation” exchanging speech-like phrases between Mingus’s bass and Dolphy’s bass-clarinet.

And then there’s the post-Ah-Um version of ‘Original Faubus Fables’, with Mingus and Richmond using actual words for how they felt about the infamous Arkansas governor. Maybe not one for Mingus beginners, but one that everyone should listen to – especially those of us who think they know it already.