Music: Charles Mingus

I've had a minor interest in Mingus for years -- had several LPs, made myself a Mingus cassette when I dumped the LPs, made myself a Mingus CD-R when I dumped the cassettes -- dubbed a couple Mingus concerts to CD-R for a friend of mine -- used to have Joni Mitchell's tribute album to him.

Yesterday I ran across, for cheap, a 5-CD box of:

• Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956)
  
• East Coasting (1957)
  
• Mingus Ah Um (1959)
  
• Mingus Dynasty (1960)
  
• Blues & Roots (1960)

I'm marveling at his modern sound, the unbelievable colors he pulled out a small big band. His constructions were very unlike "jazz" and more like chamber classical music. I'm digging it severely.

Have re-ordered Joni's album.

Charlie Mingus was really one of a kind in Jazz.

Oscar Peterson and Duke Ellington get a lot of credit for bringing jazz out of the back alleys into Carnegie Hall, but I find Mingus is 100x more sophisticated, more “European” than either Oscar or Duke or even the MJQ, which played a lot of jazzed-up classical music.

I don't know what you mean by "European" here. There's nothing European about jazz.

Exactly. Mingus’s compositions are a lot more European chamber music than jazz.

After loving the five 1956-60 albums so much I splurged ($13!) on another 8 album 4-disc set covering 1960-63:

• Newport Rebels (1960)
  
• Mingus (1960)
  
• Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1960)
  
• Tijuana Moods (1962)
  
• Oh Yeah (1962)
  
• Town Hall Concert (1962)
  
• The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
  
• Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963)
  

Mingus was amazing.  He was certainly way ahead of his time, and exemplified the art possible in the jazz idiom.