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This is an album you really have to be in the right mood for in order to enjoy it. It's a solo piano album, and a good one, but I won't say it's up there with say The Köln Concert. However, considering that Mingus was a bass player and 7 of 11 of these tracks were composed by him which makes me like it even more. How this album came to be was Mingus had lost a friend and was in the studio playing an improv piece that was gloomy and dark. Bob Thiele was in another room and heard someone playing and loved it. He walk in the studio and there he saw Mingus playing and thus asked him if he'd like to make a solo album.
Most of the tracks are pretty average but there's two stand out ones; Myself When I Am Real and Roland Kirk's Message. These two tracks are among my favourite in all of solo piano jazz. They tell a story for sure, which is what Mingus was great at in his compositions.
