It's an exciting time both for Mingus reissues and previously unissued archive material – with more on the way – but this re-release combines the known and the new. The second half of the concert has three ex-Mingus sidemen returning for a jam-session on two Ellington standards (‘Perdido’ and ‘C Jam Blues‘), which was released on LP at the time. All great fun, especially the contributions of Roland Kirk, but the meat of the set is the unreleased first half featuring the then-regular front line of Adams and Bluiett with the addition of Faddis, who worked with Mingus in 1972 but had already moved into the NYC freelance scene.

Adams, having just recorded on Mingus Moves three weeks earlier after a stint with Roy Haynes, lets it all hang out on ‘Peggy's Blue Skylight’ and ‘Celia’, including a greater propensity for quotations than I remember. Similarly, Pullen who was moving from the "avant-garde" to the "free-mainstream" is on great form, even getting an encore outing for his Bo Diddley-beat ‘Big Alice’ (later revived by the Adams-Pullen quartet). Highlight from the audience point of view is ‘Fables Of Faubus’, containing the only Mingus and Richmond solos, and all the tracks (except ‘Peggy's‘) run in the region of 20 minutes, as do the jam-session items. Thanks to producer Michael Cuscuna for remembering that this existed, and getting it out here.