The album was recorded in October and November 1960 in New York and released in late 1961 on Nat Hentoff's Candid label.

The Mingus album features one track, "Stormy Weather", recorded by the same quartet, plus two tracks recorded by a larger group featuring piano and additional horns.

weaves together the themes from three compositions: Duke Ellington's "Main Stem", Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No Chaser" and Mingus's own "Fifty-First Street Blues".

The track "Lock 'Em Up" was inspired by a period of treatment that Mingus describes undergoing in his autobiography Beneath the Underdog, at New York's Bellevue psychiatric facility.

The new track listing was: In 1980, Jazz Man Records reissued this album under its original Candid title, Mingus (JAZ-5002), also including the track "Vasserlean."