Charles Mingus put everything he had in him to experience his game. He was a powerful and virtuoso bassist. As a composer, he drew on the entire history of jazz, which resulted in work of stunning beauty. But he was primarily an artist whose uncompromising spirit evoked both admiration and controversy. In the forties and fifties, he worked as bassist for everyone from Kid Ory and Louis Armstrong to
… Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. In the early fifties, he made his first recording as a leader, at the end of the decade he was on top of his game as a bandleader, arranger and composer. He incorporated the influence of gospel, blues and European classical composers to big band jazz formula, with an innovative and completely unique sound. Mingus died in 1979, but his influence on music next generations is indelible.more