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Charles Mingus was born in Nogales,
Arizona on April 22, 1922 and grew up in Watts, California. Charlie
began studying music composition under the guidance of Loyd Reese in
Los Angeles at age 12. He studied bass under Herman Rheimschagen of
the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mingus was never allowed the luxury of
the feeling of belonging. Reactions to his mixed ancestry (he had
British-born, Chinese, Swedish and African-American grandparents)
produced strong feelings of anger and reinforced his sense of
persecution. However, this alienation, coupled with his own deep
sensitivity and tendency to dramatize his experiences, provided
substantial fuel for an artistic career of heroic turmoil and
brilliance. Formative musical experiences included both the strictures
of European classical music and the uninhibited outpourings of the
congregation of the local Holiness Church, which he attended with his
stepmother. There he heard all manner of bluesy vocal techniques,
moaning, audience-preacher responses, wild vibrato and melismatic
improvisation, along with the accompaniment of cymbals and trombones -
all of it melding into an early gospel precursor of big band that
heavily influenced Mingus' mature compositional and performance style.
Other influences were hearing Duke
Ellington 's band, and recordings of Richard Strauss' tone poems and
works by Debussy, Ravel, Bach and Beethoven. Thwarted in his early
attempts to learn trombone, Mingus switched from cello to double bass
at high school. He studied composition with Lloyd Reese and was
encouraged by Red Callender to study bass with Herman Rheimschagen of
the New York Philharmonic. He developed a virtuoso bass technique and
began to think of the bass finger-board as similar to a piano
keyboard. His first professional dates as a bass player included gigs
with New Orleans players Kid Ory and Barney Bigard, and then stints
with the Louis Armstrong Orchestra (1943-45) and Lionel Hampton
(1947), but it was with the Red Norvo Trio (1950) that he first gained
national recognition for his virtuosity. Work with other great
pioneers of his generation such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis,
Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Dizzy
Gillespie, Quincy Jones and Teddy Charles continued throughout the
50s. He joined Duke Ellington's band briefly in 1953, but a more
artistically profitable association with his hero occurred with the
trio album Money Jungle, which they made with Max Roach in 1962.
Mingus was a pioneer of black
management and artist-led record labels, forming Debut in 1953, and
the Charles Mingus label in 1964. His early compositions were varying
in success, often due to the difficulty of developing and maintaining
an ensemble to realize his complex ideas.
He contributed works to the Jazz Composers' Workshop from 1953 until
the foundation of his own workshop ensemble in 1955. Here, he was able
to make sparing use of notation, transmitting his intentions from
verbal and musical instructions sketched at the piano or on the bass.
Mingus' originality as a composer first began to flourish under these
circumstances, and with players such as Dannie Richmond, Rahsaan
Roland Kirk , Jaki Byard, Jimmy Knepper and Booker Ervin he developed
a number of highly evolved works. Crucial among his many innovations
in jazz was the use of non-standard chorus structures, contrasting
sections of quasi-'classical' composed material with passages of
freeform and group improvisations, often of varying tempos and modes,
in complex pieces knitted together by subtly evolving musical motifs.
He developed a 'conversational' mode of interactive improvisation, and
pioneered melodic bass playing. Such pieces as The Black Saint And The
Sinner Lady (1963) show enormous vitality and a great depth of
immersion in all jazz styles, from New Orleans and gospel to bebop and
free jazz. Another multi-sectional piece, 'Meditations For A Pair Of
Wire Cutters', from the album Portrait (1964), is one of many that
evolved gradually under various titles. Sections from it can be heard
on the 1963 recording Mingus Plays Piano, there called 'Myself When I
Am Real'. It was renamed 'Praying With Eric' after the tragic death of
Eric Dolphy, who made magnificent contributions to many Mingus
compositions, but especially to this intensely moving piece.
In the mid-60s, financial and psychological problems began to take
their toll, as poignantly recorded in Thomas Reichman's 1968 film
Mingus. He toured extensively during this period, presenting a group
of ensemble works. In 1971, Mingus was much encouraged by the receipt
of a Guggenheim fellowship in composition, and the publication of his
astonishing autobiography, Beneath The Underdog. The book opens with a
session conducted by a psychiatrist, and the work reveals Mingus'
self-insight, intelligence, sensitivity and tendency for
self-dramatization. Touring continued until the gradual paralysis
brought by the incurable disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
prevented him doing anything more than presiding over recordings. His
piece 'Revelations' was performed in 1978 by the New York Philharmonic
under the direction of Gunther Schuller, who also resurrected Epitaph
in 1989. Also in 1978, Mingus was honoured at the White House by Jimmy
Carter and an all-star jazz concert. News of his death, aged 56, in
Mexico was marked by many tributes from artists of all fields.
Posthumously, the ensemble Mingus Dynasty continued to perform his
works .
Mingus summed up the preoccupations of his time in a way that
transcended racial and cultural divisions, while simultaneously
highlighting racial and social injustices. Introducing the first 1964
performance of Meditations, Mingus told the audience: 'This next
composition was written when Eric Dolphy told me there was something
similar to the concentration camps down South, [. . .] where they
separated [. . .] the green from the red, or something like that; and
the only difference between the electric barbed wire is that they
don't have gas chambers and hot stoves to cook us in yet. So I wrote a
piece called Meditations as to how to get some wire cutters before
someone else gets some guns to us.' Off-mike, he can be heard saying
to fellow musicians: 'They're gonna burn us; they'll try.' In the
turmoil of his life and artistic achievements, and in his painful
demise, Mingus became his own artistic creation. A desperate,
passionate icon for the mid-twentieth century to which all can relate
in some way, he articulated the emotional currents of his time in a
way superior to that of almost any other contemporary jazz musician.
Sources:
Encyclopedia
Britannica
Encyclopedia
Africana
Atlanta
Music Group (AMG)
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