Better Git It in Your Soul

The first sound is a hand clap, and immediately the latitude widens: this is jazz that allows the body in, that explicitly acknowledges the sanctified roots of African-American music without apology or academic distance. Mingus built "Better Git It in Your Soul" around a 6/8 gospel feel that swings and lurches simultaneously, the rhythm section pulling against and with itself in a way that generates perpetual forward momentum. There are shouts from the musicians, there are moans, there is what sounds like an entire congregation of players finding the groove together in real time. The ensemble arrangements are dense but open — soloists emerge and recede naturally, as if taking turns at the altar. What's distinctive is the humor and joy mixed into what is also a serious musical statement: Mingus was asserting that Black church music and jazz were not separate traditions requiring translation between them but the same river at different bends. The tempo is brisk enough to feel celebratory and loose enough to feel human. Nothing about it sounds controlled or restrained in the way that some jazz can feel overly managed; the emotion is immediate and the technique is in service of that immediacy. This belongs to any moment when the division between body and mind seems artificial, when music should be experienced from the stomach rather than processed from the ears.