Charles Mingus

Today we remember Charles Mingus, who, on this day 45 years ago, died from ALS. As we enter the 102nd year of Mingus’s birth, we are forever reminded of his impact.

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979)

From Joni Mitchell’s liner notes to the album “Mingus”:

“Charles Mingus, a musical mystic, died in Mexico, January 5, 1979, at the age of 56. He was cremated the next day. That same day 56 s***m whales beached themselves on the Mexican coastline and were removed by fire. These are the coincidences that thrill my imagination.

Sue, at his request – carried his ashes to India and finding a place at the source of the Ganges River, where it ran turquoise and glinting with large gold carp, released him, with flowers and prayers at the break of a new day.

Sue and the holy river
Will send you to the saints of jazz –
To Duke and Bird and Fats –
And any other saints you have.” - Joni Mitchell

Photo credit: Mingus Archives

FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 16TH ANNUAL CHARLES MINGUS FESTIVAL & HIGH SCHOOL COMPETITION

Charles Mingus Festival & High School Competition February 16-19, 2024

The 16th annual event celebrates the musical genius of a jazz legend

Showcases dozens of talented high school students from across the US

NEW YORK, NY, December 22, 2023 — Top high school students from across the United States will celebrate the music of the great jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus (1922-1979) as part of the 16th Annual Charles Mingus Festival & High School Competition taking place at The New School of Jazz in New York City. Details for the full weekend festival taking place February 16- 19, 2024, can be found at charlesmingus.org.

The event is organized and presented annually by Let My Children Hear Music/The Charles Mingus Institute and by Dr. Keller Coker and The New School of Jazz, with support from Jazz Workshop, Inc.

In categories for both big bands and combos, twelve finalist ensembles will be featured in this year’s festival. Entrants come from all over the country including California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, and North Carolina.

On Saturday, February 17th, students will explore aspects of Mingus’ music in instrumental clinics, workshops, lectures, and films at The New School of Jazz’s Arnhold Hall at 55 West 13th Street. The day will conclude with Mingus jam sessions for high school student participants.

On Sunday, February 18th, the Mingus Competition is a full day of concert performances by combos and big bands in Tishman Auditorium at 63 Fifth Avenue. Sunday evening, outstanding soloists from the Competition will be invited to sit in with the Mingus Big Band at Drom.

Full press release and more info at CharlesMingus.org

“Name me a handful that’s ridiculous, Dannie Richmond!” - Charles Mingus

Remembering Dannie Richmond on what would be his 92nd birthday today. (December 15, 1931 - March 16, 1988)

Dannie started playing tenor saxophone at the age of thirteen, but his career took off when he took up the drums in his early twenties, through the formation of what was to be a 21-year association with Charles Mingus. Mingus biographer Brian Priestley writes that “Dannie became Mingus’s equivalent to Harry Carney in the Ellington band, an indispensable ingredient of ‘the Mingus sound’ and a close friend as well”.

Mingus and Dannie Richmond, Atlantic recordings, January 1978

Photo credit: Sue Mingus

“Art only represents the life of an individual,” Charles Mingus said in a 1971 interview. (Mingus) was a force of nature who represented a one-of-a-kind spectacle: a jazz volcano. - El País

Charles Mingus: 100 years of jazz’s great volcano This year marks a century since the birth of the immense composer. A boxset of his 1970s recordings will commemorate the anniversary

Congratulations to our fellow nominees and thank you for this honor! Mingus Big Band is thrilled to be included as part of Music’s Biggest Night on and can’t wait to celebrate alongside you on Feb. 4.

A piece of history from the Newport Jazz Archives... Turns out Billy Taylor was available and on November 6, 1951 Charles performed at jazz promoter and producer George Wein’s famous club Storyville in Boston, MA with Billy Taylor on piano and Marquis Foster on drums, less than two weeks after this letter was written. Three years later Wein produced the first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954.

Credit: Newport Jazz Archive
Newport Jazz Festival

Oh Yeah by Charles Mingus was recorded on November 6, 1961 at Atlantic Studios in New York City.

All compositions by Charles Mingus. This album features Charles singing on three of the cuts and playing piano throughout.

Charles Mingus – piano and vocals
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – flute, siren, tenor saxophone, manzello, and stritch
Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone
Jimmy Knepper – trombone
Doug Watkins – bass
Dannie Richmond – drums

2024 Charles Mingus Festival will take place February 16-19, 2024, with essential High School Competition events happening Saturday, Feb 17 & Sunday, Feb 18, 2024

Now accepting applications! https://charlesmingus.org

Recordings are due Dec 9, 2023, and entry fee increases Nov 1, so request your sheet music soon!

Let My Children Hear Music (The Charles Mingus Institute) and Dr. Keller Coker of The School of Jazz & Contemporary Music at The New School are excited to announce the Sixteenth Annual Charles Mingus Festival & High School Competition, founded in 2008 by NEA Jazz Master Sue Mingus.

The Competition/Festival weekend includes optional Friday and essential Saturday workshops and masterclasses at The New School, run by veteran Mingus repertory musicians and educators, a full day Sunday of Competition performances, special Mingus Big Band concerts, and numerous opportunities to immerse in the sights and sounds of New York City.

In addition, at least one $25,000 tuition scholarship to The New School will be awarded in the name of Charles Mingus, to a graduating senior participating in the Festival. Award will be based on Competition performance, and application and acceptance to The New School’s Jazz & Contemporary Music program. Outstanding soloists from the Competition are invited to sit in on Sunday with the Mingus Big Band, performing at DROM all weekend.

Can’t make it to New York City? You can still participate!
Each school receives Mingus music for study and expert feedback from Mingus musicians and educators.

Who can participate?

Combos and big bands from high schools nationwide.

Combos and big bands are subdivided into a) non-specialized high schools and b) specialized schools and programs, which includes self-directed combos.

What does self-directed combo mean?

Students may independently assemble a combo with other high school-aged students from anywhere and self-direct the ensemble. Groups will need adult approval and trip supervision, as specified in the application.

All events are open to the public.

Critics’ Choice!

Charles Mingus & Richard Davis appearing in an ad for Ampeg, 1960s.

In memory of Richard Davis (April 15, 1930 – September 6, 2023)

The Complete Town Hall Concert by Charles Mingus

Recorded at Town Hall in NYC on October 12, 1962

The Complete Town Hall Concert by Charles Mingus, recorded at The Town Hall in New York City and first released on the United Artists label in 1962 as Town Hall Concert. The album was rereleased with additional tracks on the Blue Note label in 1994 as The Complete Town Hall Concert.

The concert was originally conceived as a "live workshop" of newly composed music which would be recorded for release by United Artists but rescheduling, lack of rehearsal time, poor sound and interruptions led to the event and subsequent album proving that the evening was far more successful than previously conceived. Much of the music intended for the concert/recording was finally realized by conductor Gunther Schuller and produced by Sue Mingus in a concert in 1989 with a 4,235 measures long composition titled Epitaph. Accurately convinced that it would never be performed in his lifetime, Mingus called his work Epitaph declaring that it was written "for my tombstone."

October 12, 1962

All compositions by Charles Mingus except as indicated

"Freedom Part 1"
"Freedom Part 2"
"Osmotin"
"Epitaph Part 1"
"Peggy's Blue Skylight"
"Epitaph Part 2"
"My Search"
"Portrait"
"Duke's Choice"
"Please Don't Come Back from the Moon"
"In a Mellow Tone" (Duke Ellington, Milt Gabler)
"Epitaph" - Alternate Take

Ed Armour, Rolf Ericson, Lonnie Hillyer, Ernie Royal, Clark Terry, Richard Williams, Snooky Young, trumpet; Eddie Bert, Jimmy Cleveland, Willie Dennis, Paul Faulise, Quentin Jackson, Britt Woodman, trombone; Romeo Penque, oboe; Danny Bank, bass clarinet; Buddy Collette, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Mariano, Charles McPherson, alto sax; George Berg, Zoot Sims, tenor sax; Pepper Adams, Jerome Richardson, baritone sax; Warren Smith, vibes, percussion; Toshiko Akiyoshi, Jaki Byard, piano; Les Spann, guitar; Milt Hinton, bass; Charles Mingus, bass, narrator; Dannie Richmond, drums; Grady Tate, percussion; Bob Hammer, arranger; Melba Liston, arranger, conductor.

Remembering Sue Mingus
April 2, 1930 - September 24, 2022

Sue Mingus was a journalist, writer, and publisher, who met Charles Mingus in New York in 1964. She published a literary, arts, and music magazine called Changes and began acting as Mingus’ manager, and shortly thereafter as his partner in running Jazz Workshop, a music publishing company he had created to maintain control over his music.

After Charles Mingus' death in 1979, Sue Mingus created and directed repertory ensembles that carry on the music of her late husband. The most well known is the Mingus Big Band, a New York institution, which since 1991 has performed weekly at Fez Under Time Cafe and Jazz Standard, with the Mingus Dynasty and the Mingus Orchestra in the rotation. In 1989, she produced Mingus’ monumental Epitaph in its premiere at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. She has produced numerous Grammy-nominated recordings with Mingus repertory bands, the 2011 Grammy-winning Mingus Big Band Live at Jazz Standard, and several unreleased Charles Mingus recordings.

Mingus’ documentation of her husband's body of work resulted in a sizable archive, the Charles Mingus Collection, now housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Sue Mingus has published educational books including, Charles Mingus: More than a Fake Book, and several Charles Mingus: More than a Play Alongs, distributed by Hal Leonard Publishers. Other publications include Mingus Big Band charts, a book of guitar charts, and a special series for students called “Simply Mingus.” In 2008, she founded the annual Charles Mingus High School Competition and Festival, at the Manhattan School of Music and currently at the New School.

In 2002, Pantheon (Random House) released Sue's memoir of her life with Mingus entitled Tonight At Noon: A Love Story, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. It was released in paperback by DaCapo press and has been translated into several languages.

Sue Mingus was the recipient of the 2023 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy honoring her contributions to the appreciation, knowledge, and advancement of the American jazz art form.

Charles Mingus updated their business hours.

70 years ago...

Sunday, September 13, 1953
The Open Door on West 3rd Street, NYC

Charlie Parker, 33
Thelonious Monk, 35
Charles Mingus, 31
Roy Haynes, 28

Photograph by Bob Parent

Happy 93rd Birthday to living legend, Sonny Rollins!

Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus at Mingus’ surprise 56th birthday party, New York, April 1978 (photo courtesy of Sonny Rollins/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library)

Head to CharlesMingus.com for more info and an exclusive excerpt about the special relationship between these two.

“Life has many changes. Tomorrow it may rain and it’s supposed to be sunshine ‘cause it’s summertime. But God’s got a funny soul, he plays like Charlie Parker. He may run some thunder on you, he may take the sun and put it in the nighttime—the way it looks to me.” - Charles Mingus

103 years of Charlie Parker - Bird Lives!

Remembering Charles “Bird” Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 - March 12, 1955)

Mingus Big Band - Live at Joe's Pub

Performing The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus

August 24th, 2023 7:00pm - Mingus Big Band The Mingus Big Band celebrates the music of composer/bassist Charles Mingus, who died in 1979. Under the artistic direction of Sue Mingus, this 14-piece band...

Charles Mingus at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA - April 18, 1977

Photo by Bruce Polonsky

"I'm writing now the way I've always written. Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. And I don't write in any particular 'idiom'. I write Charles Mingus." - Charles Mingus as told to Nat Hentoff

Recorded on August 16, 1957 in New York City... East Coasting

Charles Mingus - bass, arranger & leader
Bill Evans - piano
Clarence Shaw - trumpet
Jimmy Knepper - trombone
Shafi Hadi - alto & tenor saxophone
Dannie Richmond - drums

What would be the only Mingus/Evans studio album. Coincidentally, Bill Evans received the last minute call at 4am on the morning of the recording session, he made it to the studio and sight read most of the music on the spot, all on his 28th birthday.

“A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM"

65 years ago... August 12, 1958

Photograph by Art Kane

Art Kane’s idea to photograph as many of the luminaries of the New York jazz scene as possible together for Esquire’s 1959 Golden Age of Jazz edition began his career as a photographer.

Police closed the road to all but residential traffic, and 57 musicians duly assembled in Harlem at 17 East 126th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenue.

The group included Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Thelonius Monk, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Gerry Mulligan, Mary Lou Williams and Count Basie.

Only Sonny Rollins and Benny Golson are still with us today.

“No jaded jazz, this. Few contemporary combos top the Mingus Quintet in the art of creating new, round cool sounds. Working from a musical skeleton, Charles Mingus spontaneously makes music related to the moment. Mingus at the bass is strictly off-the-record, a jazzophile's dream. Ah um, yes, experimental mile-high music that's solace for your soul. Go oh ah with Mingus today.”

From an ad that appeared in the October 1959 issue of DownBeat Magazine promoting MINGUS AH UM.

“This is the best record I ever made.” - Charles Mingus, 1962

Tijuana Moods by Charles Mingus
Recorded on July 18 and August 6, 1957 at RCA Victor’s Studio A, New York City, but not released until June 1962.

Leader & Bass: Charles Mingus
Trombone: Jimmy Knepper
Alto & Tenor Sax: Shafi Hadi
Trumpet: Clarence Shaw
Piano: Bill Triglia
Drums: Dannie Richmond
Tambourine & Castanets: Frankie Dunlop
Vocals & Handclaps: Ysabel Morel
Narrator: Lonnie Elder

“Listen to Charles Mingus as a pianist — for the first time — on record. He is uniquely himself, as this album demonstrates, playing with an impressive range of expressive power. Mingus has developed a personal piano style that expresses the more gentle, the more reflective and the more innocent elements of his personality.” - Nat Hentoff, from the original liner notes of Mingus Plays Piano

"This is not like playing at home.” - Charles Mingus

MINGUS PLAYS PIANO - Charles Mingus

spontaneous compositions and improvisations

Recorded 60 years ago on July 30, 1963 with Producer Bob Thiele at Impulse Records

Cover Painting by Victor Kalin

“My music is evidence of my soul’s will to live.” - Charles Mingus

Mingus Takes Manhattan, a new 4-LP set containing Charles Mingus’ run of dates at the world famous Birdland in New York from 1961 - 1962.

Available October 27, 2023 via New Land Records

Pre-order: newland.lnk.to/mingusbirdland

-Four 180gm LPs housed in book-case style box
-Original reel-to-reel tapes, cleaned and mastered giving these recordings optimum sound quality
-Available officially in conjunction with the Mingus Estate
-Extensive 44-page book with foreword from Christian McBride, in-depth liner notes by Brian Priestley, interview with Charles McPherson and rare photographs and ephemera
-Strictly limited edition

Previously only issued in bootleg form, the recordings enclosed feature Mingus in the midst of a highly creative spell. Alternating between bass and piano during these sets and featuring a rotating band of heavy hitters including Yusef Lateef, Roland Kirk, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, Pepper Adams as well as Mingus mainstays Charles McPherson, Dannie Richmond and many more.

“These recordings capture a window of time in the life of a jazz legend who was arguably at his creative peak.” - Christian McBride

“Charles Mingus might be the ultimate example of someone who’s “jazz famous.” Within jazz circles, he’s revered, but he should be as well-known as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, or John Coltrane. His name should be as familiar as theirs to people who know almost nothing about jazz...” — Phil Freeman, Stereogum

Mingus In The '70s A new box set compiles the jazz legend's late-life works. Plus: the best jazz releases of the month.

"When Charles Mingus returned to Atlantic Records in the 70s, the trailblazing jazz bassist and composer recorded a final run of albums in a burst of creativity that kept pace with his output at any other time in his career. Featuring new compositions, soundtrack work and revisits of classic earlier pieces, Charles Mingus’ seven 70s Atlantic Records studio albums – from 1974’s Mingus Moves to the posthumously released Something Like A Bird – reveal that the bandleader, who died before the decade came to a close, was still at the peak of his artistic powers. Collected together in the 8LP/7CD box set Changes: The Complete 1970s Atlantic Studio Recordings, these records chronicle the final chapter of Mingus’ musical journey. Helping you navigate your way through this cornucopia of late-period releases, here is a complete guide to Charles Mingus’ 70s Atlantic Records studio albums." - Dig Music

A Guide To Charles Mingus’ 70s Atlantic Records Albums - Dig! No less ambitious than his earlier work, Charles Mingus’ 70s Atlantic Records albums chart the bassist/composer’s final burst of creativity.