Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting

The first track of Blues & Roots runs 5:39 on the original LP, and a 6:59 alternate take was added to the 1998 Rhino CD. Mingus was inspired to write it by attending a Holiness Pentecostal church in Los Angeles. The scholar Ashon Crawley discusses the piece in his book Blackpentecostal Breath as an example of music that blurs the boundary between the sacred and the profane.