Ah Um was widely acknowledged as Mingus's best release up to that point (Blues And Roots was recorded earlier but released later). It begins with what became his greatest hits, ‘Better Git It In Your Soul’ followed by ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, and among other delights it had ‘Jelly Roll’, ‘Boogie Stop Shuffle’ and the initial recording of ‘Fables Of Faubus’. It also has splendid work by Ervin, Knepper, Handy and Richmond, who gave classic performances of the material at hand. As to the presentation here, for once the stereo-and-mono ‘duplication’ makes sense, in that six tracks of the original mono release were edited down (Knepper's explanation was not that Mingus wanted to discard some solos, but that he wanted different tunes earning royalties). Even here, there's a fudge, since that original mono LP was also released in stereo, whereas this stereo is the posthumous reissue including not only all the unedited tracks but three extra items unreleased until 1979. The mono version of the 2CD set doesn't include those latter three tracks, but it does have three alternate takes first released in 1993 (plus the Curson-Dolphy reading of ‘Faubus’). Is that clear? For those who like a simple life, the State Of Art single-CD has the unedited stereo tracks, plus the 1979 bonus tracks, just like the most recent Sony/Columbia reissue.