Charles Mingus

The bassist, composer and bandleader who turned the jazz workshop into a place of composed and improvised music at once, from Pithecanthropus Erectus to the single continuous suite of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

Origin: Nogales, Arizona, United States
Years active: 1943-1979
Genres: jazz, post-bop, third stream, avant-garde jazz
Labels: Debut, Atlantic, Candid, Columbia, Impulse!
Also known as: Charles Mingus Jr.

Beginnings

Charles Mingus Jr. was born on 22 April 1922 in Nogales, Arizona, and his family moved to the Watts area of Los Angeles soon afterwards. He studied trombone and cello before he took up the double bass, then worked for five years with Herman Reinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and studied composition with Lloyd Reese. In 1943 he toured with Louis Armstrong, and by the late 1940s he was in Lionel Hampton's band, which performed and recorded several of his pieces. He played in a trio with Red Norvo and Tal Farlow in 1950 and 1951, and was briefly a member of Duke Ellington's band in 1953. Mingus expressed great admiration for Ellington and once named Ellington and church as his main influences, and Dizzy Gillespie said he reminded him of a young Duke.

In 1952 he co-founded Debut Records with Max Roach so that he could run his recording career as he saw fit. Among its earliest releases were the albums of the Massey Hall concert of 15 May 1953, with Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Roach, where Mingus later overdubbed his barely audible bass part in New York.

The workshop years

Mingus led a rotating mid-sized group called the Jazz Workshop. Its members included Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Jimmy Knepper and Horace Parlan, and he demanded that they explore and develop ideas on the spot. Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956) is arguably his first major work as both bandleader and composer. The Clown (1957) was the first record to feature the drummer Dannie Richmond, who stayed his preferred drummer until Mingus's death.

In 1959 he made Mingus Ah Um, his first album for Columbia, with Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, an elegy for Lester Young, and Fables of Faubus, a protest against the Arkansas governor Orval Faubus. Columbia would not allow the lyrics, so it appeared as an instrumental. In the same year he recorded Blues & Roots for Atlantic, after Nesuhi Ertegun suggested an all-blues album because critics said he did not swing enough. In 1960 a quartet of Mingus, Richmond, Eric Dolphy and Ted Curson recorded Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus for Candid, the independent label founded by Nat Hentoff, and the lyrics of Fables of Faubus were finally sung there, under the title Original Faubus Fables.

Impulse!

His October 1962 Town Hall concert, billed as a live workshop and recording session, was plagued with troubles. Bob Thiele of the new Impulse! label was in the audience, liked the music, and offered Mingus a contract. The result was The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, recorded on 20 January 1963 by an eleven-piece band and released that July. It is a single continuous composition, partly written as a ballet, divided into four tracks and six movements. Charlie Mariano's alto saxophone was added about a week later, and Thiele recalled about fifty splices made after the session, all in Mingus's head. The sleeve carries notes by Mingus and a postscript by Dr. Edmund Pollock. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave it its highest award, a Crown.

Two of its tracks reappeared on Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus in January 1964, alongside material from a September 1963 session. In 1964 he led a sextet with Richmond, Byard, Dolphy, Johnny Coles and Clifford Jordan, whose concerts Mosaic later gathered in a seven-CD set. Dolphy stayed in Europe after the tour and died in Berlin on 28 June 1964.

Late years and legacy

Mingus held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971, the year his autobiography Beneath the Underdog appeared. In 1974 he formed a quintet with Richmond, Don Pullen, Jack Walrath and George Adams, which recorded Changes One and Changes Two. By the mid-1970s he could no longer play the instrument, but he continued composing. He was working with Joni Mitchell on an album when he died on 5 January 1979 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, aged 56. Her album Mingus came out on 13 June 1979 and reached 17 in the US.

The 4,235-measure Epitaph was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra under Gunther Schuller at Alice Tully Hall on 3 June 1989. The Library of Congress acquired his papers in 1993. His widow Sue Graham Mingus ran the Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty and Mingus Orchestra, which keep his music in performance.

Records

Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956 · Atlantic
The 1956 album with a ten-minute tone poem on the rise and fall of man.
Mingus Ah Um 1959 · Columbia
His first Columbia album: tributes to Lester Young, Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, and the instrumental Fables of Faubus.
Blues & Roots 1960 · Atlantic
An all-blues album made at the suggestion of Atlantic's Nesuhi Ertegun.
Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus 1961 · Candid
A studio quartet record that sounds live, with the vocal version of Fables of Faubus.
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady 1963 · Impulse!
One continuous ballet-like suite for eleven players, edited in the studio from Mingus's instructions.

Songs

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat Mingus Ah Um · 1959
An elegy for Lester Young that became a jazz standard.
Fables of Faubus Mingus Ah Um · 1959
A protest against Orval Faubus, first recorded without its words.
Pithecanthropus Erectus Pithecanthropus Erectus · 1956
A ten-minute tone poem on the rise and downfall of man.
Better Git It In Your Soul Mingus Ah Um · 1959
Gospel singing and preaching, rebuilt for a jazz band.
Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting Blues & Roots · 1960
The churchy opener of Blues & Roots.

Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, Joni Mitchell

Where to go next

Official

Charles Mingus official site The estate's site, with news of the Mingus Big Band, Dynasty and Orchestra and the Mingus archive.

Reference

Charles Mingus A full biography.
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady The album's recording and reception.
Mingus Ah Um Track-by-track background, edits and reissues.
Pithecanthropus Erectus The 1956 album.
Blues & Roots The blues album, with Mingus's own liner notes.
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat A history of the tune and its many versions.
Fables of Faubus The protest piece and its lyric variants.
Mingus (Joni Mitchell album) The 1979 collaboration made around Mingus's death.

Writing and criticism

The Jazz Tome on The Black Saint Newspaper and magazine reviews from 1963 and 1964, with the full credits.
uDiscover Music on The Black Saint A 2026 feature on the making of the album.

Sources

Charles Mingus, Wikipedia
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Wikipedia
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady: A Charles Mingus Masterpiece, uDiscover Music (2026-01-20)
Charles Mingus, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963), The Jazz Tome (2023-05-04)
Charles Mingus, Jazz Workshop, Inc.
Mingus Ah Um, Wikipedia
The Clown (album), Wikipedia