Charles Mingus

Born in 1922 in Arizona Charles Mingus grew up near Los Angeles and quickly became passionate about Jazz despite his mother's reluctance to tolerate only church music. Despite this, he learned the trombone and cello very early before adopting the double bass. As a teenager, he already composes particularly ardus songs similar to the Third Stream Jazz. In the 1940s he was taken on tour by Louis Amstrong and then by Lionel Hampton who recorded some of his compositions. The following decade Duke Ellington and Charlie "Bird" Parker used his talent as a bassist. Note the 1953 concert at Massey Hall with Dizzie Gillepsie , Charlie Parker , Bud Powell and Max Roach , which is probably one of the greatest live jazz ever recorded.
With Miles Davis he released a first album on his label Debut: Blue Moods. It was only the following year that he released his first album as leader: Pithecanthropus Erectus . 1963 saw the release of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, an album with an archi-fouled orchestration considered one of the best recorded in Jazz.
Musician very influential on the stage Jazz Mingus has also always been able to surround himself with the best. We will especially remember the excellent Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Eric Dolphy who both made a great solo career after playing with Mingus.
In the mid-1970s Mingus suffered from a muscle degeneration that forced him to spend the end of his life in a wheelchair. He died on 5 January 1979 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
During the census of his music after his death, musicologist Andrew Homzy discovered the integral of a last wonder called Epitaph , a colossal work that would be performed for the first time in 1989 under the impulse of his wife, Sue Mingus. Several years later the myth Mingus is perpetuated through several tribute groups, the most famous being the Mingus Big Band.