Mingus essays

Mingus essays Two Portraits of Charles MingusOne in the Lived Medium of Film and Another Music is a lived, performative medium that cannot be fully encompassed in description. Even when an individual piece of music is rendered into print in an effective and moving fashion, it still changes the nature of the music itself into something differentnamely, into a piece of prose that is a crafted example of the written art, rather than a work of music that is a moving and vibrant work of sound. One of the greatest jazz musicians of recent date is that of Charles Mingus. His work and his life cry out for a biography of his contribution to the musical medium and of his life as a performer. How to render the genius of the man in such a way that his personality and his contribution to musical history can be understood' Perhaps the best, albeit imperfect way, turn to print only as a way of fleshing out the concrete details of Mingus' contribution to jazz after spending one's live loving his music. In the absence of this, seeing the man on film through a documentary such as "Charles Mingus: The Triumph of the Underdog," offers another opportunity for a music historian to see the man and listen to the tunes But how to contextually render that life in history' The text of Central Avenue Sounds offers perhaps the best literary compromiseit 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 Angels 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 ...