"My boy" Charles Mingus

So, I’ve been reading Beneath The Underdog by Charles Mingus on the train for the last few days. First of all I have to just say that his music stands on its own. I don’t have to know anything about him or whatever happened to him along the way to come to this conclusion. However, we all know that when we love art the stories behind the curtains make everything that much more fascinating.

Realizing how half-assed it is to write something related to a review while I’m only 1/3 through the book, I’m going to continue.

First off, his voice really seems to come through—similarly how Miles Davis’ autobiography (Milescheck out Miles Davis' autobiography at Amazon.com) reads. It’s not polished “academic” english, however, it isn’t gratuitous in the name of entertaining white folks either. I also dig how he spells out selected words so we can hear ‘em (schitt = shit).

Straight from the beginning, we get a taste of his struggles of being a (light-skinned) black man in Watts—neither black nor white, but both. These issues would follow him his entire life (judging from the several articles I’ve read on him in the past). Mingus was beyond these stereotypes, he seemed to see right through people. He talks about his carnal affairs with the lascivious Mexican girl in the neighborhood like Henry Miller talks about his lovers. That is, full of romance and poetry with plenty of four-letter words to back it up.

I think I’m gonna put the brakes on right now. He just got married and had a baby boy—let’s see where we go from here!

For now, feel free to check out the Official Mingus site as well as a site with several album reviews.

date Posted on Tuesday, 17 May 2005
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