Charles Mingus was much more than a great bass player. In his work as an instrumentalist, a bandleader and a composer, Mingus reconciled the compositional and improvisational elements of jazz, and so made a contribution to the genre that was both unique and lasting.
Born in Nogales, Arizona, on April 22, 1922, Mingus was raised in the Watts district of Los Angeles. In school, he began playing the trombone, then switched to the cello before settling on the bass. At age 16, he began studying with Red Callender.
Mingus’s first professional experience was in a band led by former Duke ELLINGTON clarinettist Barney Bigard. Soon after, he toured with Louis ARMSTRONG and other bands, including Lionel Hampton’s. It was in the 1950s that Mingus’s career took off. At the start of the decade he was being prominently featured in the trio of vibraphonist Red Norvo, and throughout the rest of the 1950s he played in small and large ensembles led by the likes of Charlie PARKER, Stan GETZ, and Duke Ellington. He also became a leader of considerable merit, enlisting artists such as trombonist J. J. Johnson, trumpeter Thad Jones, and pianist Mal Waldron.
Throughout this period Mingus blossomed as a composer. His music is a volatile mixture of emotion and technique that owes a great deal to several sources—aspects of gospel music, blues “shouts” and other African-American folk forms, the spirit of New Orleans’ collective improvisation, and the Ellington ensemble sound. Though he was an enormously important, if sometimes difficult, bandleader and a talented bassist, Mingus permanently changed the language of jazz as a composer. Working through the bebop era, Mingus’s pieces had to be longer and looser than the work of his hero, Duke Ellington, and he became one of the leading lights in the development of both modal and free jazz.
Later Mingus-led ensembles, such as the various Mingus Jazz Workshop bands, prefigured much of the free expressionism of later modern players, and advanced the “conversational” concept of soloing, with the leader moderating group instrumental “discussions.” The Mingus Jazz Workshop bands ranged from four to 11 pieces, and the list of alumni includes alto players Eric DOLPHY and John Handy, tenor player Booker Ervin, trumpeter Ted Curson, and pianist Paul Bley.
Mingus was one of the organising forces behind the legendary Jazz at Massey Town Hall concert in Toronto in 1953, taping for his own Debut Records label the performance by one of the most important quintets ever assembled—Mingus, Charlie Parker, Bud POWELL, Dizzy GILLESPIE, and Max ROACH.
In the 1960s Mingus recorded his classic albums The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (his most Ellingtonian work) and Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus, both extended pieces of great complexity and intensity. However, from the mid-1960s, Mingus suffered from ill health. In 1971, he was granted a Guggenheim fellowship in composition, and published his powerful and controversial autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, but he performed less frequently.
Mingus continued to compose and tour with his band, and he collaborated with folksinger Joni MITCHELL on an album she completed after his death, but his health deteriorated in 1977, and he finally succumbed to Lou Gehrig’s disease in January 1979.
Mingus’ music was a direct reflection of himself— turbulent, passionate, with moments of great clarity and confusion. He was the first American composer to have his entire collection of scores and memorabilia housed in the Library of Congress.
Chris Slawecki
SEE ALSO:
FREE JAZZ; JAZZ; MODAL JAZZ; MODERN JAZZ QUARTET.
Mingus, Charles. Beneath the Underdog (New York: Penguin Books, 1980);
Priestley, Brian. Mingus: A Cntical Biography (London: Paladin, 1985).
Blues and Roots; The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever/Jazz at Massey Hall; Mingus Ah-Um; Mingus Plays Piano; Pithecanthropus Erectus.