Charles Allen

This mammoth 12-CD box set may not contain Charles Mingus' most significant recordings (those would take place shortly after these sessions), but there is a remarkable amount of exciting and somewhat innovative music in this reissue of all of the dates recorded for Mingus' Debut label.

Connecticut, 1863. Union soldier Cyrus Task (Warren Oates), has returned from The War Between the States to his farm after losing his leg to a Rebel bullet. His wife (Nellie Bellflower), a devoutly religious woman, is scornful of Cyrus' phoney boasting about his brief war exploits, but is unable to deal with the knowledge that Cyrus has given her a sexually transmitted disease ("Cupid's itch," as the doctor calls it). Humiliated before God, she commits suicide by drowning herself in the farm's pond. Cyrus, at a loss how to raise his infant son, Adam, remarries and has another son, Charles…..