Biography of Charlie Mingus

The smuggling is not much nervous: for the birthday of a jazz instrumentalist and composer Charles Mingus on April 23, Viktor Garbark, a big jazz fan 96 years ago, Charles Mingus was born - “Angry Man of Jazz”, a wounded and frightening genius, in his music, condemning to extreme, and tenderness, a third -rate pioneer and advocate in the forefront of Jazze, neither black, nor white, nor yellow, the enemy to the whole world, paranoid and a constant client of the psychotherapist before it became mainstream, as well as a great lover of women and cats.

The difficulty is that I am constantly changing. ” It is not enough to play the blues Charles Mingus born on April 22 in the state of Arizona near the Mexican border, but he moved and grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Both of his parents were half -shoes, so Charles was only a quarter of the African American along with Chinese, Indian, English and Swedish roots, and quite fair -skinned.

Because of this, from childhood he did not fit into the white or black society and constantly lived in alienation, being a “minority among the minority”-even in the midst of the New York career, the musician reproached that he was “not enough to play the blues”. Mingus-Sr., according to a family legend, did not know at all about his Negro roots at all, and after that opening he escaped from home and tried to put himself above “these nigers” all his life-in particular, he sought to give his children a musical education.

The first strongest influence on the future jazzman was influenced by hiking with the stepmother on prayer meetings in the “Church of Holy”, where the flock fell into a trance and violently responded to a preaching with moaning and blues rhythms. The jazz workshop in the Church of the young Charles saw and chose his first instrument Trombon, but soon exchanged it for the cello and even played in the youthful Philharmonic Orchestra, dreaming of becoming an opera and symphonic composer.

However, in America, a career in academic music was closed to African Americans. Familiar musicians advised him to go to the double bass to play “our music”. Mingus had already met Jazz, having heard the orchestra Duke Ellington on the radio on the radio on the radio, who became his second large guideline, but did not lose interest in the classics. At the beginning of his career, the smuggler went through the magnificent school of all jazz styles led by giants from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespi, simultaneously visited the vibral-guitar trio of the norvo who pulled out the Mingus disappointed with the postman’s life back to the musicians.

Having won the reputation of a virtuoso instrumentalist, Mingus organized a “jazz workshop” as the first independent steps to jointly search and develop new ideas and one of the first African American musicians founded an independent record-label Debut, so as not to depend on the white collars of the musical business. Each relationship with the world can angry an artist where the one who pays is ordered, it was generally not easy.

In his autobiography, Beneath the Underdog Mingus was recognized in the bifurcation or even studies of personality. One is a calm, an outside observer, the other is like an intimidated animal attacking from fear of an attack. The third, excessively gullible, signs contracts, without reading, agree to cheap and free work, and then, waking up, wants to kill and destroy everything around, including himself for his own stupidity.

Not everything was smooth with the audience either: “I hope that someday the musician no longer have to jump up and down on the drum or dance on the stage to achieve a recognition of his talent.” Novators such as Charlie Parker, completely devoted themselves to their art, and not the entertainment of the public, but, unfortunately, did not receive a worthy reward: only the arrogant stereotypes of the press, and all the cream - money and glory - took off white imitators.

Mingus called one of his compositions, "Be Charlie Parker with a shooter, we would have many dead imitators." He did not complain either critics: “I play and write myself, my feelings. If someone is trying to escape from reality, I do not expect that he will like my music. My music is angry, but it is real, for it knows that she is angry. ” Do not fit - kill! From verbal skirmishes to assault - only one step, and Charles Mingus from an early age of his career earned a reputation as an “angry person from jazz”.

With his impressive growth and weight, he was already terrible in anger, and anger fell into and without and without. In the orchestra of his idol, Duke Ellington, the young smuggler did not last long and was fired after a fight with thrombonist Juan Tizol. After a dozen years, another thrombonist, the faithful associate of Jimmy Nerpov, suffered from the temper of Mingus, lost his tooth and could not play high notes for more than a year-they did not talk ten years, but then they somehow reconciled.The most touching from a string of such stories was told about his first concert with Mingus Saxophonist Charles MacPherson: “The owner of the club was owed to Mingus, so he began to destroy the Steinway piano, and began to tear the strings one after another.

Then he wanted to kill the saxophonist Eric Dolfi, who was about to leave the ensemble. This all ended. " Incredible sense of justice. The bass echoing in the desert, injustice and oppression always caused a burning protest in Mingus, which sometimes found a more peaceful expression - in music. His play Song, although not as widely known as the Jazz Standard Net Educerli, is perhaps more successfully conveys the severity of slave physical labor - the mournful leitmotif of the winds, interrupted by the blow of the hammer through the anvil, a sharp muffled “cluster” chord.

The ten -minute symphonic poem Pithecanthropus Erectus “Monkey -Hoemer is Disassembled” from the same album of the same name, who ascended on his two legs over the rest of the views and imagined them with his slaves, and himself as the crown of creation and the rule of the world - his pride and greatness of greatness, his decline and the imminent. death.

The most politically “charged” anthem was the “fable of the Fabuls” Fables of Faubus - the Arkanzas governor, on the command of which the soldiers of the National Guard did not let black schools into a white school after recognizing the segregation illegal. Initially, this composition was released on the Mingus AH UM album as an instrumental play without words - although from the name to contemporaries it was clear about whom and what it was about.

Later, a concert record with a text was released, where a smuggler in the manner of church chants is thrown by questions and answers with the drummer: “Who is the most ridiculous, Danny? Governor Fobus! Why is he so sick and ridiculous? He prohibits mixed schools! Well, a fool! Charles wrote this thing when he was married to a white woman. Wives and other disasters in relations with women, as in many other respects, Mingus was a gum man.

He was married four times, and somewhere he claimed that he was once in two marriages at once, a huge part of the autobiography devoted to his implausible adventures like the night with a pair of dozen girls in a row and generally needed love at least twice a day. His last wife, Susan Graham, far from a jazz subculture, a married girl from a decent society, was drawn to the life of Mingus unexpectedly and almost against her will when she starred in the film, who wanted to order a jazz soundtrack Ornetta Culmen.

Almost immediately after he met, Charles began to share with her all his grandiose creative plans, invited her to organize an office for selling entries through orders by mail and even presented it to his psychotherapist. The last step was probably no less important than for other people acquaintance with parents. The same psychoanalyst Mingus ordered the day before to write an annotation to his masterpiece Opus Magnum - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady orchestra, conceived as music to the ballet.

One way or another, Sue Mingus became a faithful ally in Charles - the struggle for music and recognition, muse and support, producer and manager. She was the editor of Changes magazine, where she published her husband’s works, including the future autobiography and Cat-Vologue instructions, how to accustom the cat to go to the toilet. She openly stole pirate records and CDs with Mingus music from stores and issued an official reprint of the Wrighter records of the Paris concert for a record-liable with the speaking name of Revenge “Retus”.

When Charles was chained to a wheelchair with a diagnosis of “lateral amyotrophic sclerosis”, Sue began to look for a “farewell” project for him-they became an album of Mingus Folk Rock-singer Johni Mitchell with the participation of Wayne Shorter, Herby Hankok and Zhako Pastorius, who composed the texts for several Mingus melodies, which he was Partially sung in a weakening voice into the recorder.

After the death of her husband, having dispelled his ashes over the Ganga River, Sue organized several musical groups for the extensive Mingus repertoire, including Mingus Big Band, where our New York compatriot Boris Kozlov plays at the Historical Smugus of Charles. On the initiative of Sue, the cataloging of the unrelated sheets of Mingus began, during which it was possible to find his gigantic composition for more than a thousand tactes and two hours of sound, which the composer gave the prophetic name Epitaph with the subtitle “for my tombstone” - the star orchestra, under the leadership of the conductor Gunther Schuller, finally gave the first complete full The concert performance of this opus 10 years after the death of the author.Sue Mingus is also the author of the sincere book of memoirs Tonight at Noon “Tonight at noon” - the next typically Mingus paradoxical name for one of his melodies, the publisher of musical collections and the founder of the Charles Mingus contest for music schools.

Mingus has died, but thanks to Sue his work lives and his music sounds. Mingus himself did not become the author of the soundtracks, like Quincy Jones or Lalo Shifrin, but one attempt is still worthy of a separate mention: the film of John Cassavetis “Shadows”, largely built on improvisation, became the early forerunner of the wave of independent film work without financial support and artistic control of large Hollywood studios.

The director was counting on the improvised soundtrack of the Minghus ensemble, but Charles insisted on full -fledged compositions that did not include the final version of the recovered film, although it contains remarkable solo excerpts synchronously overturned by one gulp for a short glyssando on the string of double bass. But cooperation with Mingus went down in history in a quotation collection from an interview with Cassavetis about Cassavetis: when the director turned to him for music, he had a counter request.

I will fulfill your request, but you have to do something for me. I have cats at home, and they shit on the floor. Can you send a couple of your people to clean the cat crap? We came with scrapers and removed everything there. Too clean. Is it possible not to love him, a kind of lousy?