11. Charles MingusThe Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

I used to listen to this album when I was running track – it was my warm-up album. I used to have it in my Discman, strapped to my arm, and it still gets me so hyped. The traded solo freakouts on that album are so good and so soulful, and it’s Mingus doing Mingus stuff, man. It’s so Black, so steeped in African-American culture. It’s so, so deep. But it still feels new to me. When I put it on now, it still feels like I’ve never heard before – it just can’t get old. I went to Berkeley High School, which has a really great jazz program, and I used to play a saxophone in the same classroom as Ambrose Akinmusire and Jonathan Finlayson. Ambrose won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition at 25 years old. Those were the players around me. And one of them probably turned me on to that album at some point, and it’s been important to me for a long time. I’m fairly certain I was the only person warming up for the hurdles race with Mingus in my Discman.