One of the most important figures in twentieth century American music, Charles Mingus was a virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader and composer. Born on a military base in Nogales, Arizona in 1922 and raised in Watts, California, his earliest musical influences came from the church-- choir and group singing-- and from "hearing Duke Ellington over the radio when [he] was eight years old." He studied double bass and composition in a formal way (five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and compositional techniques with the legendary Lloyd Reese) while absorbing vernacular music from the great jazz masters, first-hand. His early professional experience, in the 40's, found him touring with bands like Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory and Lionel Hampton .

Eventually he settled in New York where he played and recorded with the leading musicians of the 1950's-- Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington himself. One of the few bassists to do so, Mingus quickly developed as a leader of musicians. He was also an accomplished pianist who could have made a career playing that instrument. By the mid-50's he had formed his own publishing and recording companies to protect and document his growing repertoire of original music. He also founded the "Jazz Workshop," a group which enabled young composers to have their new works performed in concert and on recordings.

Mingus soon found himself at the forefront of the avant-garde. His recordings bear witness to the extraordinarily creative body of work that followed. They include: Pithecanthropus Erectus, The Clown, Tijuana Moods, Mingus Dynasty, Mingus Ah Um, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Cumbia and Jazz Fusion, Let My Children Hear Music. He recorded over a hundred albums and wrote over three hundred scores.

Although he wrote his first concert piece, "Half-Mast Inhibition," when he was seventeen years old, it was not recorded until twenty years later by a 22-piece orchestra with Gunther Schuller conducting. It was the presentation of "Revelations" which combined jazz and classical idioms, at the 1955 Brandeis Festival of the Creative Arts, that established him as one of the foremost jazz composers of his day.

In 1971 Mingus was awarded the Slee Chair of Music and spent a semester teaching composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In the same year his autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, was published by Knopf. In 1972 it appeared in a Bantam paperback and was reissued after his death, in 1980, by Viking/Penguin and again by Pantheon Books, in 1991. In 1972 he also re-signed with Columbia Records. His music was performed frequently by ballet companies, and Alvin Ailey choreographed an hour program called "The Mingus Dances" during a 1972 collaboration with the Robert Joffrey Ballet Company.

He toured extensively throughout Europe, Japan, Canada, South America and the United States until the end of 1977 when he was diagnosed as having a rare nerve disease, Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis. He was confined to a wheelchair, and although he was no longer able to write music on paper or compose at the piano, his last works were sung into a tape recorder.

From the 1960's until his death in 1979 at age 56, Mingus remained in the forefront of American music. When asked to comment on his accomplishments, Mingus said that his abilities as a bassist were the result of hard work but that his talent for composition came from God.

Mingus received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Smithsonian Institute, and the Guggenheim Foundation (two grants). He also received an honorary degree from Brandeis and an award from Yale University. At a memorial following Mingus' death, Steve Schlesinger of the Guggenheim Foundation commented that Mingus was one of the few artists who received two grants and added: "I look forward to the day when we can transcend labels like jazz and acknowledge Charles Mingus as the major American composer that he is." The New Yorker wrote: "For sheer melodic and rhythmic and structural originality, his compositions may equal anything written in western music in the twentieth century."

He died in Mexico on January 5, 1979, and his ashes were scattered in the Ganges River in India. Both New York City and Washington, D.C. honored him posthumously with a "Charles Mingus Day."

After his death, the National Endowment for the Arts provided grants for a Mingus foundation called "Let My Children Hear Music" which catalogued all of Mingus' works. The microfilms of these works were then given to the Music Division of the New York Public Library where they are currently available for study and scholarship--a first, for jazz. A repertory band called the Mingus Dynasty and the Mingus Big Band continue to perform his music. Recent biographies of Charles Mingus include Mingus by Brian Priestley and Mingus/Mingus by Janet Coleman and Al Young.

Mingus' masterwork, "Epitaph," a composition which is more than 4000 measures long and which requires two hours to perform, was discovered during the cataloguing process. 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, in a concert produced by Sue Mingus at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after Mingus' death.

The New Yorker wrote that "Epitaph" represents the first advance in jazz composition since Duke Ellington's "Black, Brown, and Beige," which was written in 1943. The New York Times said it ranked with the "most memorable jazz events of the decade." Convinced that it would never be performed in his lifetime, Mingus called his work "Epitaph;" declaring that he wrote it "for my tombstone."

The Library of Congress has acquired the entire collection of Mingus musical scores and memorabilia, a first for American jazz composition.

Reprinted from More than a Fake Book © 1991 Jazz Workshop, Inc.

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Buy More than a Fake Book and these other biographical titles, available at a discount from Amazon.com:

Triumph of the Underdog, 1998 video biography

Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus, by Charles Mingus

Mingus/Mingus by Janet Coleman and Al Young

Mingus: A Critical Biography, by Brian Priestley

More than a Fake Book, by Charles Mingus

http://www.mingusmingusmingus.com/

Debut Records/Fantasy OJCCD-044-2 (DEB-124)

Jazz at Massey Hall Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach BUY IT

May, 1953

Debut 123

Charles Mingus Quintet + Max Roach at the Cafe Bohemia BUY IT

1956 (later titled Chazz!)

Atlantic 8809-2 (lp 1237)

Pithecanthropus Erectus BUY IT

January 30, 1956, reissue 1981

Atlantic 1260

The Clown BUY IT

1957

Atlantic

Tonight at Noon

1957 and 1961 sessions

RCA

Tijuana Moods BUY IT

recd in 57, issued in 1962

Bethlehem

East Coasting

recd 57

United Artists

Wonderland BUY IT

1959

Atlantic 1305-2

Blues and Roots BUY IT

recd1959, released 1960

Columbia 1370

Mingus Ah Um BUY IT

1959

Columbia

Mingus Dynasty BUY IT

1959

Columbia

The Complete 1959 Columbia Recordings BUY IT

1998 original recording remaster of above two albums with bonus CD of alternate takes

Columbia

Better Get it in your Soul

reissue of 1959 session

Columbia

Nostalgia in Times Square

alternate takes of 1959 session

EmArcy/Mercury 60627

Pre-Bird Mingus

1961

Candid

Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus

1960

Atlantic

Mingus at Antibes

recd in 1960, released in1980

Candid

Mingus

1960

Mosaic

The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus

Atlantic 1377

Oh Yeah BUY IT

1962

United Artists 15017

Money Jungle Duke Ellington, Mingus and Max Roach BUY IT

1962

United Artists

Town Hall Concert BUY IT

1962

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady BUY IT

1963

Impulse! 60

Mingus Plays Piano BUY IT

1964

Impulse! 54

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus BUY IT

1963

Jazz Workshop (Fantasy) OJCCD-042-2 (JWS-005-5)

Town Hall Concert BUY IT

April 4, 1964

Ulysse AROC CD 1001, 1002

Concertgebow Amsterdam

recd April 10, 1964, issd 1985

Prestige 34001(Fantasy)

The Great Concert of Charles Mingus

Revenge! Records 32002

Revenge! The Legendary Paris Concerts BUY IT

April 18, 1964

Enja CD 3049-45

Mingus In Europe, Volume One BUY IT

Enja R2 79612

Mingus In Europe, Vol. 2

Fantasy

Right Now BUY IT

1964

Charles Mingus Enterprises 001/002

Mingus at Monterey

1966

Jazz Workshop, Inc.

Music Written for Monterey, Not Heard, Played in its Entirety at UCLA

recd 1964, reissued 1986

Atlantic

Best of Charles Mingus

Columbia

Let My Children Hear Music BUY IT

1971

Columbia

Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert BUY IT

1972 Avery Fisher Hall

Atlantic/Rhino R2 71454

Mingus Moves BUY IT

1973

Atlantic

Mingus at Carnegie Hall BUY IT

1974

Atlantic

Changes One BUY IT

1974

Atlantic

Changes Two BUY IT

1974

Atlantic 8801

Cumbia and Jazz Fusion BUY IT

1977

Atlantic

Three or Four Shades of Blues BUY IT

1977

Atlantic

Me Myself and Eye

1978

Atlantic

Something Like a Bird

1978

Atlantic

Three Worlds of Drums

1978

Atlantic

Passions of a Man BUY IT

Columbia C2K 45428

Epitaph BUY IT

1990

Atlantic/Rhino R2-71402

Thirteen Pictures: the Charles Mingus Anthology BUY IT

1993

Columbia 47405

Mingus Dynasty: The Next Generation

1991

Columbia CK 52739

Various Artists: Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus BUY IT

1992

Dreyfus FDM 36559-2

Mingus Big Band 93: Nostalgia in Times Square BUY IT

1993

Dreyfus FDM 36575-2

Mingus Big Band: Gunslinging Birds BUY IT

1995

Dreyfus FDM 36583-2

Mingus Big Band: Live in Time BUY IT

January 1997

Dreyfus

Mingus Big Band: Que Viva Mingus BUY IT

January 1998