For Let My Children Hear Music Charles Mingus had his compositions scored for a large ensemble, with orchestrations by Sy Johnson and Alan Raph and soloists including Charles McPherson, James Moody and Sir Roland Hanna. The album originally appeared in 1972 on Columbia. The Chill of Death, a piece he had written as a teenager, finally got a recording here, and The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers grew into one of his best known titles. Mingus wrote the sleeve notes himself, setting out what he understood a jazz composer to be, and those notes earned him a 1973 Grammy nomination for best album notes.

This edition is an LP.