On Money Jungle

In The Paris Review, Matt Levin writes about Money Jungle, the (killer) 1962 album by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach: “A Masterpiece of Disharmony.”

Masterpiece? Yes. Disharmony? I’m not convinced. Tumult, certainly, and the shift from the tumultuous “Money Jungle” to the serene “Fleurette Africaine” is one of the oddest choices in sequencing I know. But guess what? Those two tracks are both twelve-bar blues. One form, many possibilities.

Thanks, Chris.

[Track three, “Very Special,” is a twelve-bar blues as well, as are other tracks from the session.]