Charles Mingus (1922–79,) byname Charlie Mingus, was an American jazz bassist, composer, and bandleader. One of the most excellent jazz musicians and composers in history, he experimented with atonality and was influenced by gospel and blues.
Born in Nogales, Arizona, Mingus was brought up in Los Angeles. He played the cello at school and performed with the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic but took up double bass after contacting jazz musicians. His first professional work as a bassist was with traditional-style bands. He drew on this childhood background gospel music at the Holiness-Pentecostal and produced modern and avant-garde music.
Mingus worked with big bands led by Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and Kid Ory in the 1940s, before moving to New York, where he played in smaller groups, notably with vibraphonist Red Norvo.
Mingus was recognized as a leading figure on his instrument, but his ambitions lay in composition. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he launched a record label, Debut, in 1953, and became involved with the experimental Jazz Composers Workshop, before forming his own Jazz Workshop in 1955.
Recordings like Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956) and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1964) redefined the boundaries of jazz and the relationship of composition to improvisation. Mingus wrote an unfinished, semi-fictional ‘autobiography,’Beneath the Underdog, and was known for his violent temper and activism against racial injustice.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Charles Mingus
Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird—that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace—making the complicated simple, awesomely simple—that’s creativity.
—Charles Mingus
Topics: Creativity, Simple Living, To Be Born Everyday, Simplicity
Apt Mother’s Day song title: All the Things You Could Be by Now if Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother
—Charles Mingus
Topics: Motherhood
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Duke Ellington American Musician
Doris Day American Actor
Billie Holiday American Jazz Singer
Fred Astaire American Dancer, Singer
Robert M. Pirsig American Writer
Aretha Franklin American Gospel and Soul Singer
Johnny Cash American Country Musician
Judy Garland American Actress, Singer
Helen Gurley Brown American Publisher
Aaron Copland American Composer