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Mingus, Charles, Jr.
3 articles on Mingus, Charles, Jr.
Mingus, Charles, Jr.
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century
Word Count: 1462 Includes: Bibliography(b. 22 April 1922; d. 5 January 1979), jazz composer, bassist, and bandleader. Charles Mingus, known simply as Mingus, was born on a military base in Nogales, Arizona, and was raised in the Watts district of Los Angeles, where his father, Charles Mingus Sr., settled after the death of his mother, Harriet Sophia Mingus. Charles Jr. had two sisters, Grace and Vivian. By 1940 Watts, which had been annexed to Los Angeles in 1926, was becoming a predominantly African American area. Mingus studied composition in Los Angeles with Lloyd Reese (who had played alto with the Les Hite Orchestra and was also the teacher of Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette, and Eric Dolphy) and double bass with Herman Rheinshagen(a former bassist with the New York Philharmonic) and George “Red” Callender. During high school Mingus performed in ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 1890 Includes: Bibliography1922–1979
African American bassist, bandleader, and composer who foreshadowed free jazz but grounded his music in the black gospel and blues tradition. Charles Mingus was a temperamental iconoclast, a virtuoso bassist, and a man who protested racial injustice through his music. Mingus's compositions reveal his deep involvement in the musical experimentation of the 1940s known as Bebop, in which young black musicians significantly expanded the harmonic boundaries of Jazz. He also drew from the legacy of older jazz styles and the rich African American traditions of blues and gospel music, but he created a jazz world uniquely his own. Few jazz musicians gain renown for their compositions. Apart from Mingus, critics identify only three great jazz composers: Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington,Thelonious ...
Read full articleMingus, Charles, Jr.
Source: African American National Biography
Word Count: 1902 Includes: Further Reading | Discography(22 Apr. 1922–5 Jan. 1979), bassist and composer, was born in Nogales, Arizona, the youngest of three children and the only son of Charles Mingus Sr., a retired U.S. Army staff sergeant and postal worker from North Carolina, and Harriett Sophia Phillips, from Texas. Seeking medical treatment for Harriett, the family moved to the Watts community of Los Angeles in October 1922. Shortly after the move, Harriett Mingus died from chronic myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscles associated with alcohol consumption. Mingus Sr. married again, to Mamie Carson, whose son, Odell Carson, took Mingus as his surname. All the children were encouraged to take music lessons. Mingus's sisters, Grace and Vivian, learned the violin and piano; Odell took up the guitar; and Mingus began on the trombone, then ...
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