Charles Mingus was a virtuoso upright bassist, composer and bandleader whose restless, church-and-blues-rooted music pushed past bebop into collectively improvised, emotionally volatile compositions like 'Mingus Ah Um' and 'The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.' His combination of formal ambition and raw physicality on the bass reset expectations for what the instrument could do as a lead voice, directly shaping the generation of jazz-fusion bassists — Stanley Clarke among them — who followed him. He remained a towering, uncompromising figure in jazz composition until motor neuron disease ended his playing career in the mid-1970s.

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1959

Goodbye Pork Pie HatCharles Mingus