31 years past his death, Mingus is still great

Bassist and band leader Charles Mingus passed away 31 years ago today, on Jan. 5, 1979.

Simply put, he was one of the greatest in jazz -- particularly if you could stand to work with him. There are plenty of stories about that aspect of Mingus' personality.

Here's a twofer from Mingus: "Moanin," a song that first showed up on his Blues And Roots album (love that baritone sax there), and his version of Duke Ellington's "Take The A Train."

Right around 1960 Mingus had his own Ellington phase, switching over to the piano, going with slightly larger bands, and deploying trombonist Jimmie Knepper more frequently, in a role similar to what Lawrence Brown played for The Duke.

Knepper and Mingus later had an altercation and Mingus punched his trombonist in the mouth -- unforgivable stuff given Knepper needed a good lip to play. Knepper later sued Mingus but admitted from the stand that he did his best work ever under that lunatic.



But this video is from later, probably around 1964. That's when Mingus used one of his best-ever touring bands, with Jaki Byard on piano and Eric Dolphy on alto sax/bass clarinet/flute. Dolphy's featured here.

Mingus is definitely one of my favorites.

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