i hate to use this phrase, but..........
This is probably the best jazz album of all time. Mingus, one of the great jazz composers and all time lunitics, has a suite in Black Saint that runs the entire span of jazz, from Dixieland to the then (1963) rising avant garde. Free playing passages sit next to blues and Ellington interludes. Louis Armstrong and Don Cherry seem to be sitting chair by chair. All of jazz up to this point (And you could argure projecting into 1970) is encompossed on this album.

Add all this to Mingus' mad genious, and the racial struggle of the era, and you have one amazing emotional backdrop. This album may be a well composed jazz history sculpture, but it works primarly on the emotions. Listen to the second track, and how simple blues can build into an avant-garde emotional flood at the flip of a hat. Charlie takes a simple, repetitive line, and deconstructs it into a orgasam, a race riot, or both. He is litterally changing the blues into a new form, and then making that form look at itself and go back to the blues.

It is impossible to make you understand in words how amazing this album is.

But please, you really, really, REALLY need to hear Black Saint and Sinner Lady.

True Masterpiece of Modern Music
After listening to this album many times over the past couple years, I can only come to the conclusion that this work ranks up there with some of the greatest artistic human achievements. Mr. Mingus, already a trailblazing master of jazz composition, used the medium of the music to craft one of the most direct life-to-sound translations I've ever come across.
The intensity of this music, especially when it goes into a repetitive march, becomes so enthralling you can almost physically feel his pain. It is so honest and personal a statement that I think describing what was played in specifics would not do either Mingus or the prospective listener any justice (I will note, however, that the inclusion of the Spanish acoustic guitar passages was very shocking and smart).
This masterpiece is a highly recommended addition to any true music fan's collection.

One Cool Cat
Outstanding! This is as cool as they come. Charles Mingus should have his own Universe where he is king of everything. Listening to this recording convinces me that Mingus was a true original in every sense of the word. Wow! I could listen to this album forever; well, not forever; but I won't grow tired of it any time soon. It is so rich and virtuosic; a wild, eclectic salad of aural delights. I am eternally thankful that a guy like Charles Mingus lived and did what he did. This is wild, cool, crazy, and extraordinary music. The creativity of this man astounds me. I wouldn't hesitate to plunk down the money for this CD. My one complaint; and I hate myself for stating it; is that it could have been a little longer. But I say that only because I am greedy for more of this marvelous music.

Amazing.
You listen to this album and you're somewhere different. I don't know where, exactly, but it exists out of time, out of space, a sort of subconscious musical twilight zone, a half remembered dream, the kind of thoughts that you can only grab at peripherally. This is music it is supposed to exist, music that fulfills the very purpose of music, and that is to express what words can't, to give life and dimension to those thoughts and longings and feelings that every human being worth the breath in his or her body has felt at some point in time. Mingus, a genius if there ever was one, takes the entire scope of human emotion as his palate, hurling himself into every second and sound on this record, singing his soul without reservation or restraint. Of course, he demands no less from his band, and they perform incredibly. The music is raw, even in its stunning complexity. It's a harrowed, cathartic rush of sound, furious and urgent and utterly direct. It isn't always beautiful, but it supposed to be; Mingus is grappling with nothing less than life itself, and that means making concessions to chaos, disorder, fear, and violence. What's so amazing about the pice is that its more harrowing moments go hand-in-hand with equally unforgettable evocations of love, harmony, and joy. These feelings interact in every way imaginable, doing battle in countless permutations and juxtapositions. It's gorgeous even at its most hideous, and harrowing even at its most beautiful. It's a masterpiece. You owe this to yourself.

Still Stunningly Original
If you want to hear on man's inner torment, confusion and resolution set to music, this is it. From the opening snare strikes that sound like a cross between gunfire and a death march to the sublime, serene and beautiful piano intro that opens track 3, replete with flamenco guitar breaks and some frightening plunger-muted trombones that sound eerily human, there is simply nothing else like "The Black Saint...." in all of jazz, nor in all of music! For long form jazz composition this is impossible to beat though many have tried. Mingus' Masterpiece.