Being reissued on purple vinyl doesn’t feel exactly the appropriate apotheosis of Pithecanthropus, whose programmatic title-track elaborates on Mingus’ storyline about Man’s vainglorious self-image and ultimate self-destruction. (Or perhaps it’s just a symbol of where late capitalism is taking us in the Anthropocene era). Of course, it’s the music rather than its inspirations that concerns us, and that title-track still grips the imagination with its open-ended modal structures, bouts of collective improv, exaggerated dynamics (even in the bass part) and ambitious avant-gardism, which were years ahead of their time.

And it’s not just the title track – with only three other pieces of vastly differing lengths, Mingus achieved maximum variety, aided by the supportive Waldron and the venturesome Monterose and McLean. ‘A Foggy Day’, loosely inspired by Gershwin, has further free and free-length sections plus sound effects, while the three-minute ballad ‘Portrait Of Jackie’ is a pause for reflection before the longest item ‘Love Chant’, very distantly based on ‘Perdido’.

Does adding an extra track to bring the running-time up to 45 minutes automatically guarantee a superior listen? In this case, yes, because it’s the live version of ‘Love Chant’ (from EJC’s Complete Live At The Café Bohemia) done just six weeks earlier with a different front-line, but vividly demonstrating Mingus in the act of developing his material. This may not be as well-known as Ah Um or Black Saint And The Sinner Lady, but it was a milestone for Mingus, and a milestone for jazz.