Charles Mingus ' location in jazz history was secured well before his passing at fifty-six in 1979. He had made his mark as one of the music's great bassists, most formidable bandleaders and original composers. But an event that occurred 10 years after his dying created a tsunami spreading throughout the jazz world, now known as Mingus Music.

That event was the premiere of "Epitaph ( available on the two-CD 1990 Columbia release of the same name ), Mingus ' sprawling, grand, two-hour-plus musical classic composed for an improved, thirty-piece jazz orchestra. In 1962, Mingus disastrously tried to record some of it in a concert ( the results can be heard on the 1962 United Artist release, City Hall Concert ), then deserted it, though allegedly continuing to work on it, since a manuscript of over 500 pages was found in his widow Sue Mingus ' closet some years after his dying. Working diligently from that manuscript, conductor / arranger Gunther Schuller, an early champ of Mingus the composer, produced the performable score heard on the Columbia recording. Till that concert and recording in 1989, Mingus Music had lived on modestly with Mingus Dynasty, the seven-piece band of generally Mingus alumni that Sue Mingus had been handling and booking for the prior decade. But "Epitaph made her rethink the future. "Hearing Charles ' music mirrored in much grander fashion in 'Epitaph ' galvanized me to start the Mingus Gigantic Band, she revealed from her Jazz Workshop, Inc, offices in Manhattan, where she was in the middle of planning for the 1st Big Apple performance of "Epitaph in 18 years, as an element of a confirmation of Mingus ' 85th birth anniversary ( he was born April 22nd, 1922 ). In 1999 the Mingus Enormous Band and Mingus Dynasty were joined in her expanding Mingus Music organization by the Mingus Orchestra, another ensemble stressing musical renderings of Mingus Music and employing some of the instruments Mingus added to standard massive band sections for "Epitaph, like bassoon, bass clarinet and French horn.

"Charles did not have the advantage of a gigantic band, explains Sue Mingus, "so virtually all our agreements for the big band and orchestra are done by members of the ensembles or Gunther Schuller and Sy Johnson [who orchestrated some of Mingus ' bigger ensemble recordings]. It is a living inheritance. What keeps Mingus Music so modern and moving forward is the space that Charles left in the music. It is a noteworthy fusion of heavy composition that must be honoured and great liberty inside that composition. He left a large amount of liberty for the musicians to bring in their own individual voices. His mantra was 'Play yourself' ; he would scream it at the musicians all of the time and so you have voices of today mirrored in the music as it edges forward. As trombonist Ku-umba Frank Lacy, a critical member of the 3 Mingus ensembles recently, expresses it, "With Mingus not alive, musicians now need to be skilled enough all alone level to bring something to the table of Mingus Music. After , by 'touching the hem of their garments, ' so to point out, playing with musicians who played with Mingus, after the cultured is transferred, musically, idiomatically and metaphysically...I feel now I will keep Mingus ' bequest going, with mildness. Trombonist Eddie Bert, is one of the few musicians who played at both the aborted "Epitaph City Hall concert in 1962 and the victorious 1989 Philharmonic Hall event, recalls playing with a completely different Mingus as a composer in the '50s. "We were in tiny Mingus bands, often quintets, announces Bert, "and there wasn't any music written down. We'd go to Mingus ' home and he played it on the piano and said, 'Learn it and play it like you wanna play it. ' That's how he was ; he would play it on the piano or maybe sing it to us at gigs. Now everything is written and it's different.

Back then he announced when you read it you do not play it the same way ; when you know it you play it different. Naturally with the giant bands he had to draft the music, but he always was making changes when he conducted it. Trumpeter Ted Curson, who was in the Mingus ' finest quartet with woodwind multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy and drummer Dannie Richmond in the latter '50s, compares Mingus as a leader to Ellington, in that both could get the best out of their musicians.