On April 22, 2002 it was eighty years ago that the legendary bass player Charles Mingus was born. At its peak in the early 1950s, Mingus performed with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. After that he became one of the few bass players who had his own band. With progressive albums such as Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956), New Tijuana Moods (1957), and Mingus Ah Um (1959), Mingus established
… himself as one of the leading jazz composers of the 20th century. He was also a pioneer in the fusion of classical music with jazz. On the occasion of his eightieth birthday, a compilation of three CDs with work from the period 1951-1954 (Bass-ically Speaking) was compiled with the collaboration of Max Roach, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie, the period 1954-1955 (Haitian Fight Song) with ao Thad Jones, Miles Davis, and Mal Waldon, and the period 1955-1964 (Meditations) with, among others, Eric Dolphy. On these three CDs you can clearly hear how the development of jazz progressed from the swing of the early fifties via bebop to the free jazz of the early sixties and the important role that Charles Mingus played in it. (RM)more