Charles Mingus

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how one of the greatest jazz musicians of recent date is Charles Mingus and how his work and his life cry out for a biography of his contribution to the musical medium and of his life as a performer. It reviews the documentary film, "Charles Mingus: he Triumph of the Underdog", and shows how it offers an opportunity for a music historian to see the man and listen to the tunes that formed his life's passion. In contrast, it also examines the book, "Central Avenue Sounds", which attempts to give a portrait of an era and a specific time and place in history, rather than one man.

From the Paper:

"But how to contextually render that life in history? The text of Central Avenue Sounds offers perhaps the best literary compromise it is a work of prose, but one that offers an oral history of jazz. Through weaving in the voices of different musicians, and different perspectives of the musicians of the Los Angeles music "scene" the book hopes to offer a fully-fleshed internal as well as external history of these artists. Charles Mingus was a critical influence upon many of these artists, as well as was influenced by those who preceded him. But the book is not only a triumph, to borrow the documentary's title, of prose. It is also a triumph of the medium recorded oral history."

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