Like the Coltrane box reviewed this month, this comprehensive reissue from the mid-1990s is a classic of jazz history, now recycled in slightly slimmer packaging and at about half the original price. It includes not only the innovative Pithecanthropus Erectus and the down-home Blues And Roots (the latter with four alternate takes) but the equally rewarding The Clown and Oh Yeah, plus the album of extra material from these two sessions, Tonight At Noon. Also added to Mingus's Atlantic canon are the posthumously released 1960 concert At Antibes (with Dolphy, Curson and Ervin) and the quartet tracks from a straightahead album with vibist and fellow experimentalist, Teddy Charles. But the real bonus here was perhaps the 65-minute ‘interview’ with Mingus, done by his producer Nesuhi Ertegun to publicise Oh Yeah, which is actually more of a monologue during which Ertegun even leaves the room at one point. It sheds light on its subject, but not as much as hearing all this marvellous music end to end.