When the widely celebrated LP Mingus Ah Um was being released, Charles Mingus and producer Teo Macero were about to record the bassist/ composer's second album for Columbia. Whoever thought up the title of the first collection was obviously inspired by studying Latin at school, and the same person or someone else managed to top that achievement with the follow-up title, Mingus Dynasty. The reference to Imperial China's Ming emperors was appropriate since the bassist's teenage nickname was "Ming", and he was in fact one-quarter Chinese himself and quite happy to go along with the art director's ideas for the album cover. There's a definite soundtrack quality to a great deal of the music on this album, and indeed the majority of Mingus' originals here were composed for film and television scores.