Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus played the double bass like a horn and wrote music that could scrape as hard as it swung. He grew up in Watts on church music and Duke Ellington, made his name in the bands of Lionel Hampton and Red Norvo, and in 1952 founded the Debut Records label with Max Roach. From the late 1950s he led his Jazz Workshop, a shifting cast of players who often learned their parts by ear rather than from a score. Albums such as Pithecanthropus Erectus, Blues & Roots, Mingus Ah Um and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady run from gospel and blues to free collective improvisation, with pieces that could be political (Fables of Faubus) or elegiac (Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, written for Lester Young). His 1971 autobiography Beneath the Underdog is as headstrong as his music. Mingus died in 1979 at the age of 56 from ALS.

This collection brings together Charles Mingus on vinyl, LP and CD: reissues of the classics from the 1950s and 1960s, archival concert recordings and box sets from his later studio years.