“I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.”More than almost any other great music innovator in or out of jazz, Charles Mingus was a textbook example of a truly creative artist who thrived through constant change and evolution.
‘Mingus was one of the most original composers and players of century,’ says Keith Richards of the jazz great, who died in 1979. Mingus’ centennial will be celebrated Saturday in Nogales, the Arizona border town where he was bornThe result was a profoundly influential body of work best described by the phrase he coined: “Mingus music.” Its impact is still felt today, more than four decades after his death in 1979 at the age of 56.
A key member of Mingus’ constantly changing bands between 1960 and 1972, McPherson will be the special guest artist at Saturday’s free Mingus Centennial concert in the Arizona border town of Nogales. Mingus was born there on April 22, 1920; his family moved to Los Angeles when he was just 3 months old.
• Jazz-savvy hip-hop acts who have sampled Mingus’ music on their recordings include Gang Starr, 3rd Bass, Jeru The Damaja and Dj Crucial. The album also featured the 16-stringed surrogate kithara, the 847-pound marimba eroica and other one-of-a-kind instruments created and built by the late composer Harry Partch. San Diego’s Francis Thumm, a Harry Partch Ensemble alum, plays a key role on “Weird Nightmare.” The making of the album is documented in the 1993 film “Weird Nightmare: A Tribute to Charles Mingus,” which was directed by Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Ray Davies, the founder of the band The Kinks.
Much like the man himself, Mingus’ music could be graceful, sophisticated and imbued with a beguiling sense of melancholia and intense beauty. It could also be raucous, gritty and rollicking, elegant and experimental, nuanced and explosive. Mingus was a classically trained bassist. He was steeped in the traditions of jazz, as befits an artist whose early career in Los Angeles saw him work as the bassist in bands led by Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington and Kid Ory.
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