Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus played the upright bass like it had personally insulted him, and wrote music big and brawling enough to hold every mood he had. Born on April 22, 1922, he was a bassist, composer, bandleader, pianist and author, and he could handle trombone and cello too, and he spent three decades making jazz that shouted, prayed, swung and argued with itself, often all in the same tune.

He'd played alongside Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Eric Dolphy, but his own bands were the real laboratory: quintets, sextets, octets and the Jazz Workshop, where he championed collective improvisation. Pithecanthropus Erectus in 1956 and Mingus Ah Um in 1959 helped blaze the trail for post-bop, and Mingus Ah Um's "Better Git It in Your Soul" is pure revival-tent fervor, all hollers, hand claps and stomping bass. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, in 1963, blew the big band wide open.

He died on January 5, 1979, and the music has refused to sit still since. The Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty and Mingus Orchestra keep it alive on stage, high school players battle over his charts in the Charles Mingus High School Competition, and in 1993 the Library of Congress took in his papers, scores and recordings. A Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and several Grammy Hall of Fame entries round out the honors.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.