The original four-track album of The Clown is one of the huge series of Japanese reissues from Warner. Though sometimes overshadowed by the twin peaks of Pithecanthropus Erectus and Blues And Roots, it stands as an exceptional achievement in its own right. It also constituted the record debut in such an exposed context of not only Knepper but rhythm-and-blues graduates Hadi and Richmond, the master drummer who'd been a saxophonist till a year earlier (Legge, reviewed in November with Dizzy Gillespie, is equally interesting here and his early death was a sad loss). Mingus himself may have still been moving towards his unique amalgam, yet his lengthy bass introduction and subsequent solo on ‘Haitian Fight Song’ are worth the price of the album, but so is the whole track. But, then, so is the Parker dedication ‘Reincarnation Of A Lovebird’, showing a more lyrical side of Mingus than hitherto. And there's the title track, the first of his combinations of music and speech, with a story that has a lot to say about showbiz, part-improvised by New York radio presenter Shepherd. One to keep and to savour.