The brilliant 1972 London live performance by the bassist-composer's sextet, originally planned as an official album, is released as a three-CD set.
The deluxe booklet features interviews with Mingus, alto saxophonist Charles McPherson, and writer Fran Lebowitz, an overview by jazz historian Brian Priestley, tributes from bassist Christian McBride, Eddie Gomez, and more!

The live set, which includes nearly two and a half hours of music, was professionally recorded on eight-track tapes using a mobile recording truck on August 14 and 15, 1972. The performance remained unreleased, however, as Mingus - like every other top jazz musician on the Columbia roster except Miles Davis - was dropped by the label in the spring of 1973. This release is fully authorized by Jazz Workshop, Inc. which controls Mingus' music.

Charles Mingus Live at Ronnie Scott's
In his knowledgeable overview of Mingus' activities in the early 1970s and his performance at Scott's Club, British jazz critic and historian Brian Priestley, who wrote an authoritative biography of the musician in 1983, writes: "The great music included here comes from a special period in the life of Charles Mingus, a period in which he re-emerged from the depths of depression and inactivity to eventually be greeted with far greater recognition than he had ever experienced before."

By the time Mingus's band performed at saxophonist Scott's famed London club, the great jazzman was enjoying a career renaissance: in 1971 he had received a Guggenheim Foundation grant and adapted his music for choreographer Alvin Ailey's The Mingus Dances, while 1972 saw the release of his powerful autobiography Beneath the Underdog and his well-received big band album Let My Children Hear Music.

Though his group still included the formidable saxophonists Bobby Jones (tenor) and Charles McPherson (alto), the sextet was in transition, and the new members were convincing on stage. Pianist Jaki Byard was replaced by the relatively unknown John Foster, who showed off his skills on the keyboard as well as a vocalist with Scott's. Longtime drummer Danny Richmond, who had joined the pop band Mark-Almond, was replaced by the brilliant, powerful Detroit musician Roy Brooks, who demonstrated his invention of "breath-a-tone," which allowed him to control the pitch of his drums as he played. Trumpet was filled by the phenomenal 19-year-old Jon Faddis, a protégé and acolyte of Dizzy Gillespie.

The Lost Album contains nine performances recorded over two evenings during the engagement; some of them - the then-new compositions "Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Silk Blues" and "Mind-readers' Convention in Milano," as well as the warhorse "Fables Of Faubus" - are epics that stretch on the half-hour mark or beyond. In its entirety, the set is comparable to Mingus' legendary concerts at Monterey, Carnegie Hall and Antibes.

In a new interview with Feldman, McPherson aptly characterizes his longtime employer's musical approach, "[Mingus] liked his music to be clean enough to make it clear that it was elaborate and thought out, but not so flawless that it sounded robotic or monotonous or inhuman - too processed. I think 'organized chaos' is an apt term, because that's really what Mingus's music sounded like; it almost had this freewheeling kind of vibe, and yet you can tell it's written and thought out, and it has all the elements of organization, but yet it has elements of spontaneity."

Two of jazz's most famous bassists have expressed their appreciation for Mingus in interviews conducted by Feldman. Christian McBride says, "Mingus just had such an individual sound, such a presence. He had a charisma that nobody else had. I love how Mingus' music is this blurry balance between blues, swing and avant-garde.... He did it in a way that no one else did." Eddie Gomez notes, "He had a big influence in a big forest, so I assumed he got a lot of credit. Maybe he should have gotten more. He's still one of the great influences in jazz music."