From the recording Orange Was the Color...by C. Mingus
Orange...is on Karmic Tribute because when I was in my early 20's, I had learned to first 12 bars of it (it's much longer than that and very complicated) and one night at Bradley's on University Place in NYC, Mingus was sitting on the banquet next to Bradley. So with the courage that only the young have, I went up to the piano and played the first 12 bars of "Orange..." and improvised on it for a while. When I finished, Mingus clapped and said: "That was good but why didn't you play the bridge?" I proceeded to learn the whole tune for this recording.
Lyrics
This is from Marilynn's solo jazz piano CD Karmic Tribute. One of the first places I headed to when I got to New York in 1964 was the Five Spot on St Mark's Place. Charles Mingus was there most of that summer with his octet and he was bigger than life. Nobody could drive a band with a bass the way he could and his writting was tremendous, soulful, rich and sultry.