The story behind puzzle No. 26
Charles Mingus · Mingus Ah Um · Columbia · 1959
Lester Young died in March 1959. Two months later, Charles Mingus walked into the studio with a slow, aching tribute named for Young's trademark hat.
Mingus recorded Mingus Ah Um at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in May 1959, his first album for the label. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat was his elegy for Lester Young, who had died on March 15.
Young wore broad-brimmed pork pie hats that he shaped himself from ordinary homburgs. In a 1949 interview he said he bought them only in Black neighborhoods, because you could not get the right kind anywhere else.
Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics for the tune on her 1979 album Mingus. Rahsaan Roland Kirk had recorded his own tribute version before her.
Who's on it
Keep listening
Play Lester Leaps In, puzzle No. 10, to hear the man the song remembers.
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