Jazz Standard kicks off another month of our long–running “Mingus Monday” residency with two power­ful sets of music by legendary bassist, composer, and bandleader Charles Mingus (1922–1979), as per­formed by the GRAMMY Award–winning Mingus Big Band. “To judge from the sound of the music, Mingus was seeking to duplicate within his groups the freely responsive relationship between black preacher and congregation or blues singer and audience, a relationship which allows for abrupt changes of tempo and meter, stop-time dramatic pauses and other devices, according to the shared feelings of the participants and the sensitivity of the preacher/singer/group leader as a channeler of collective energies.” – Robert Palmer, from his liner notes for Mingus At Antibes (Atlantic SD 2–3001, 1976)