Mingus

Charles Mingus, Jr., born on 22 April 1922 on a military base in Nogales, Arizona, is one of the foremost figures in twentieth century American music as composer, bandleader, bassist, and pianist.

He grew up in Watts, California. He lived with his religious stepmother and thus his earliest musical influences came from the church--choir and group singing. Mingus began the study of music at an early age. From six until about sixteen, he tried to learn the trombone; but dissatisfied with poor teachers, he took up the cello and by high school the double bass. He studied the double bass first with Red Calendar and then five years with Herman Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic; and studied also compositional techniques with the legendary Lloyd Reese. These years of study laid a foundation for his technique. The young Mingus also absorbed first hand the vernacular music from the great jazz masters.

Mingus began as a "serious" composer, as steeped in Stravinsky and Schoenberg as in Ellington. Although he wrote his first concert piece, "Half-Mast Inhibition," when he was seventeen years old. A 22-piece orchestra did not record it until twenty years later.

In the 1940s, Mingus played with a number of well-known musicians. When he was 20 years old, Mingus had a professional stint with Kid Ory in Barney Bigard's group (1942). The following year he was touring with Louis Armstrong. During the mid-40s Mingus made a move toward rhythm and blues and in 1947 began work with Lionel Hampton's big band, where he made a name as a jazz musician, writing and playing.

During the Hampton period, Mingus also led various ensembles under the stage name of Baron Von Mingus. In 1950 Mingus worked with vibist Red Norvo and guitarist Tal Farlow and recorded with Red Norvo. In New York (1951), Mingus also played with Billy Taylor, Stan Getz, and Art Tatum. And settling in New York in 1953 Mingus played bass for the infamous Massey Hall concert with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington.

By the mid-1950s Mingus went the independent route. He formed his own label, Debut, to protect and document his enlarging repertoire of original music. He also formed the Jazz Composer's Workshop, a cooperative for musicians all as a way to avoid the commercialism of the music industry. The Workshop was a way to enable young musicians to have their compositions performed in concert and on recordings.

Rare for bassists, Mingus quickly developed as a leader of musicians. In addition, he was an accomplished pianist who could have made a career playing that instrument. Mingus was inspired by Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Negro gospel music, and Mexican folk music, as well as traditional jazz and 20th-century concert music. The presentation at the 1955 Brandeis Festival of the Creative Arts of "Revelations," which combined jazz and classical idioms, established Mingus as one of the foremost jazz composers of his day.

With his revolt against cool and hard bop, Mingus headed to the forefront of avant-garde. Mingus attempted to get more "soul" into bebop with simple churchy minor-keyed melodies and gospel piano chords. Throughout Mingus, there's an emphasis on blues and gospel.

Mingus drew directly on the music of the church: the call and response of the horns, the antiphonal textures, the collective improvisation all reflect the preaching, testifying, and speaking in tongues that he heard as a child. No jazz composer has been more insistent on getting a bluesy, "vocal" character from his players; one notes the speech-like free duets with drummer Dannie Richmond and, for a while, Eric Dolphy. By 1959 Mingus's music moved to a whole other order.

Mingus also wrote for larger instrumentation's and composed several film scores. Aside from being a great bandleader and bassist, Mingus, Gunther Schuller reiterated, could go toe to toe with the greats simply in a written-on-paper composing contest. Mingus was a "composer." As a bassist, Mingus, with his volatile and beautiful music, was always more effective as a soloist than an