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A video exploring the impact of Charles Mingus on civil rights through his jazz music, presented by Nick Rossi.
- 7 min
- 1880
- Nick Rossi
A profound composer and powerful bassist, Mingus' personal story is at times disturbing, and his reputation as the 'angry man of jazz' was well earned, but his mark on the history of jazz is ...
- 39 min
- 4.5K
- Chase Sanborn
Order Your Copy of Walking the Changes: Legends of Double Bass in Jazz here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/walkingthechanges===Follow Walking the Changes! Fa...
- 4 min
- 896
- Beneath the Bassline
- Biography
- Musical Style
- Personality and Temper
- Legacy
- Awards and Honors
- Filmography
Early life and career
Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona. His father, Charles Mingus Sr., was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Mingus Junior was largely raised in the Wattsarea of Los Angeles. His maternal grandfather was a Chinese British subject from Hong Kong, and his maternal grandmother was an African-American from the southern United States. Mingus was the great-great-great-grandson of the family's founding patriarch who was, by most accounts, a German immigrant. His ancestry included German American, A...
Based in New York
In 1952, Mingus co-founded Debut Records with Max Roach so he could conduct his recording career as he saw fit. The name originated from his desire to document unrecorded young musicians. Despite this, the best-known recording the company issued was of the most prominent figures in bebop. On May 15, 1953, Mingus joined Dizzy Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell, and Roach for a concert at Massey Hallin Toronto, which is the last recorded documentation of Gillespie and Parker playing together. After...
Pithecanthropus Erectus and other recordings
The 1950s are generally regarded as Mingus's most productive and fertile period. Over a ten-year period, he made 30 records for a number of labels (Atlantic, Candid, Columbia, Impulse and others). Mingus had already recorded around ten albums as a bandleader, but 1956 was a breakthrough year for him, with the release of Pithecanthropus Erectus, arguably his first major work as both a bandleader and composer. Like Ellington, Mingus wrote songs with specific musicians in mind, and his band for...
His compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop, drawing heavily from black gospel music and blues, while sometimes containing elements of Third Stream, free jazz, and classical music. He once cited Duke Ellingtonand church as his main influences. Mingus espoused collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, ...
Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus's often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz". His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many onstage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals. Although respected for his musical talents, Mingus was sometimes feared for his occasion...
The Mingus Big Band
Charles Mingus's music is currently being performed and reinterpreted by the Mingus Big Band, which in October 2008 began playing every Monday at Jazz Standard in New York City, and often tours the rest of the U.S. and Europe. The Mingus Big Band, the Mingus Orchestra, and the Mingus Dynasty band are managed by Jazz Workshop, Inc. and run by Mingus's widow, Sue Graham Mingus. Elvis Costello has written lyrics for a few Mingus pieces. He had once sung lyrics for one piece, "Invisible Lady", ba...
Epitaph
Epitaph is considered one of Charles Mingus's masterpieces. The composition is 4,235 measures long, requires two hours to perform, and is one of the longest jazz pieces ever written. Epitaph was only completely discovered, by musicologist Andrew Homzy, during the cataloging process after Mingus's death. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller. This...
Autobiography
Mingus wrote the sprawling, exaggerated, quasi-autobiography, Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus, throughout the 1960s, and it was published in 1971. Its "stream of consciousness" style covered several aspects of his life that had previously been off-record. Mingus's autobiography also serves as an insight into his psyche, as well as his attitudes about race and society. It includes accounts of being bullied as a child, his removal from a white musician's union, and grappli...
1971: Guggenheim Fellowship (Music Composition).1971: Inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.1988: The National Endowment for the Arts provided grants for a Mingus nonprofit called "Let My Children Hear Music" which cataloged all of Mingus's works. The microfilms of these works were given...1993: The Library of Congressacquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscri...1959, Mingus contributed most of the music for John Cassavetes's gritty New York City film Shadows.1961, Mingus appeared as a bassist and actor in the British film All Night Long.1968, Thomas Reichman directed the documentary Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968.1991, Ray Davies produced a documentary entitled Weird Nightmare. It contains footage of Mingus and interviews with artists making Hal Willner's tribute album of the same name, including Elvis Cost...Jun 4, 2024 · Charles Mingus was one of the most important figures of 20th century American music. He was an eminent jazz musician and his music was impregnated with emotions. Apart from being a musician, he was also a fervent civil rights activist, author, poet and bandleader.
Sep 17, 2013 · For the next five years, Mingus was sunk in gloom. The young people who’d followed him at the Five Spot had moved on to the wilder shores of free jazz and rock, and he felt abandoned.
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Jun 7, 2021 · Bandleader Charles Mingus was a notable jazz musician of the mid-twentieth century. He helped pioneer the concept of collective improvisation.
