2. "Cumbia & Jazz Fusion," Cumbia & Jazz Fusion The song is 28 minutes long and took up the entire A-side of its 1978 vinyl pressing (it's only three minutes shorter than the entire Ramones album released that year, Road to Ruin.) Written for a film about drug trafficking between New York and Colombia, the work allowed Mingus to work in a Latin element.

He'd done it before on a full album (Tijuana Moods -- check out "Ysabel's Table Dance," a standout), but this commissioned work gave him a chance to fuse his new, broader vision of jazz with Latin sounds. There's clarinet and congas, jungle birds and the ever-steady trombone work of longtime Mingus band member Jimmy Knepper.

Plus, you get to hear Mingus sing (he sounds exactly the way you think he does!), crooning here about how "mama's little baby" prefers diamonds to shortening bread. Find some down time, some headphones and this song for a quick excursion south of the equator.

1. "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat (Theme For Lester Young)," Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus Mingus composed many ballads in his prolific career, but this is probably the best-known of them, an homage to friend and mentor, Lester Young, written just two months after the saxophonist died. Joni Mitchell fans are aware of Mingus -- her 1979 album is titled Mingus and closes with "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat," complete with lyrics she specifically wrote for the song.

Her words celebrate both jazz legends -- Mingus, who wrote the tune and was in Mexico living out his final days in a losing battle to ALS; and Young, affectionately known as "Pres" and a leader of the cool jazz movement.