Mingus Ah Um

Mingus Ah Um was his first album for Columbia, recorded in May 1959 and released that October. The title is a play on a Latin declension, turning Mingus into Minga and Mingum. The Penguin Guide to Jazz calls it an extended tribute to ancestors. Better Git It in Your Soul draws on gospel singing and preaching, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat remembers Lester Young, Open Letter to Duke is a tribute to Duke Ellington, and Jelly Roll refers to Jelly Roll Morton. Self-Portrait in Three Colors was first written for John Cassavetes's film Shadows but went unused for budgetary reasons. Boogie Stop Shuffle is a twelve-bar blues built from four themes.

Six of the nine tracks were shortened on the original LP, by one to three minutes each, partly to fit the format and because Macero felt they worked better edited. Unedited versions first came out in 1979, and the unedited album reached CD widely in 1998. The cover painting is by S. Neil Fujita. Rolling Stone ranked the album 380th on its 2020 list of 500 greatest albums, the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2003, and it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.