Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus was an influential American jazz composer, bassist, bandleader, and pianist, born on April 22, 1922, in Nogales, Arizona, and raised in Watts, California. His early musical influences included church music and the sounds of Duke Ellington, which he heard on the radio as a child. Mingus formally studied double bass under H. Rheinshagen of the New York Philharmonic and learned compositional techniques from Lloyd Reese.
In the 1940s, Mingus toured with notable bands led by Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Lionel Hampton. By the 1950s, he had established himself in New York, collaborating with jazz legends such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Duke Ellington. Mingus was not only a skilled bassist but also an accomplished pianist and a pioneering bandleader. He founded his own publishing and recording companies and created the "Jazz Workshop," a platform for young composers.
Mingus's work was at the forefront of the jazz avant-garde, with significant recordings including "Pithecanthropus Erectus," "The Clown," "Tijuana Moods," "Mingus Ah Um," and "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady." He composed over three hundred scores and recorded more than a hundred albums. His first concert piece, "Half-Mast Inhibition," written at seventeen, was recorded twenty years later.
In 1971, Mingus was awarded the Slee Chair of Music and taught composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His autobiography, "Beneath the Underdog," was published the same year. Despite being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1977, Mingus continued to compose, using a tape recorder to capture his final works.
Mingus received numerous accolades, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Smithsonian Institute, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He passed away on January 5, 1979, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, leaving a lasting legacy in the world of jazz.
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