Vocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein words are sung to melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either improvised or written and set to pre-existing instrumental solos, sometimes in the form of a tribute to the original instrumentalist. The word "vocalese" is a play on the musical term "vocalise" and the suffix "-ese", meant to indicate a sort of language.

The inventor and most prolific practitioner of vocalese was Eddie Jefferson, whose rendition of Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" became a hit on its own. Pioneers of vocalese include King Pleasure and Babs Gonzales, Jefferson's former dance partner. Pleasure first gained popularity singing Jefferson's vocalese classic "Moody's Mood for Love", based on a James Moody saxophone solo to "I'm in the Mood for Love".

The best-known practitioners and popularisers are probably Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, which group was made up of Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross. The term vocalese is believed to have been coined by jazz critic Leonard Feather to describe the first Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross album, Sing a Song of Basie.^[1] Ross's 1952 lyrics for the song "Twisted", a blues improvisation by saxophonist Wardell Gray, are considered a classic of the genre. Other performers known for vocalese include Bob Dorough, Giacomo Gates[1], Kurt Elling, Al Jarreau, Mark Murphy, Roger Miller, New York Voices, and The Manhattan Transfer, whose Grammy-winning version of Weather Report's "Birdland" featured lyrics by Jon Hendricks.

Some performers, notably Slim Gaillard, Harry Gibson, Cab Calloway, and Leo Watson, combine vocalese improvisations with scat singing.

Most vocalese lyrics are entirely syllabic, as opposed to melismatic. This may lead to the use of many words sung quickly in a given phrase, especially in the case of bebop.

Outside of jazz[link]

This section requires expansion.

Vocalese has also been used in genres of music apart from jazz. Examples include Annie Haslam's singing in "Mother Russia", "Prologue" and "Rajah Khan" (also from Prologue).

An example applied to classical music is Flanders and Swann's Ill Wind, in which lyrics are set to the Rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4

See also[link]

• Doo-wop
• Voice instrumental
• Tonal language

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Twisted" lyrics
• J. Bradford Robinson: "Vocalese". Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy. Accessed 25 Jun 05 (subscription access).

Charles Mingus
Performance for the U.S. Bicentennial, New York City, July 4, 1976. Photo by Tom Marcello
Background information
Birth name	Charles Mingus Jr.
Born	(1922-04-22)April 22, 1922 US Army Base in Nogales, Arizona
Origin	Los Angeles, California, United States
Died	January 5, 1979(1979-01-05) (aged 56) Cuernavaca, Mexico
Genres	Bebop, avant-garde jazz, post-bop, third stream
Occupations	Bassist, composer, bandleader
Instruments	Double bass, piano, cello, trombone
Years active	1943–1979
Labels	Atlantic, Candid, Columbia, Debut, Impulse!, Mercury, United Artists
Website	www.mingusmingusmingus.com

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.

Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz.

Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players.

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus' often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz." His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many on-stage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals.^[1]

Because of his brilliant writing for mid-size ensembles—and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups—Mingus is often considered the heir of Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed great admiration. Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him "of a young Duke", citing their shared "organizational genius."^[2]

Mingus' music was once believed to be too difficult to play without Mingus' leadership, and Gunther Schuller has suggested that Mingus should be ranked among the most important American composers, jazz or otherwise.^[3] However, many musicians play Mingus compositions today, from those who play with the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition.^[4]

In 1988, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts^[5] made possible the cataloging of Mingus compositions, which were then donated to the Music Division of the New York Public Library^[6] for public use. In 1993, The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".^[7]

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona. He was raised largely in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California. His mother's paternal heritage was Chinese and English, while historical records indicate that his father was the illegitimate offspring of a black farmhand and his Swedish employer's white granddaughter.^[8] In Mingus' autobiography Beneath the Underdog he recounts a story told to him by his father, Charles Mingus Sr., according to which his white grandmother was actually a first cousin of Abraham Lincoln. Charles Mingus Sr. claims to have been raised by his mother and her husband as a white person until he was fourteen, when his mother revealed to her family that the child's true father was a black slave, after which he had to run away from his family and live on his own. The autobiography doesn't confirm whether Charles Mingus Sr. or Mingus himself believed this story to be true, or whether it was meant to be merely an embellished version of the Mingus family's lineage.^[9]

His mother allowed only church-related music in their home, but Mingus developed an early love for music, especially Duke Ellington. He studied trombone, and later cello, although he was unable to follow the cello professionally because, at the time, it was nearly impossible for a black musician to make a career of classical music, and the cello was not yet accepted as a jazz instrument. Despite this, Mingus was still attached to the cello; as he studied bass with Red Callender in the late 1930s, Callender would even comment that the cello was still Mingus's main instrument. In Beneath the Underdog, Mingus states that he did not actually start learning bass until Buddy Collette accepted him into his swing band under the stipulation that he be the band's bass player.^[9]

Due to a poor education (much of which was because his early teachers did not think much could come of a black student), Mingus could not read western notation as a young musician. This had a serious impact on his early musical experiences: since he could not read music, he felt ostracized from the classical music world rather than accepted, and eventually turned from a symphonic path entirely. These early experiences were also reflected in his music, which often focused on racism, discrimination and justice.^[10] Much of the cello technique he learned was applicable to double bass when he took up the instrument in high school. He studied for five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and compositional techniques with Lloyd Reese.^[11] Throughout much of his career, he played a bass made in 1927 by the German maker Ernst Heinrich Roth.

Beginning in his teen years, Mingus was writing quite advanced pieces; many are similar to Third Stream because they incorporate elements of classical music. A number of them were recorded in 1960 with conductor Gunther Schuller, and released as Pre-Bird, referring to Charlie "Bird" Parker; Mingus was one of many musicians whose perspectives on music were altered by Parker into "pre- and post-Bird" eras.

Mingus gained a reputation as a bass prodigy. His first major professional job was playing with former Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard. He toured with Louis Armstrong in 1943, and by early 1945 was recording in Los Angeles in a band led by Russell Jacquet and which also included Teddy Edwards, Maurice Simon, Bill Davis and Chico Hamilton, and in May that year, in Hollywood, again with Teddy Edwards, in a band led by Howard McGhee.^[12] He then played with Lionel Hampton's band in the late 1940s; Hampton performed and recorded several of Mingus's pieces. A popular trio of Mingus, Red Norvo and Tal Farlow in 1950 and 1951 received considerable acclaim, but Mingus' mixed origin caused problems with club owners and he left the group. Mingus was briefly a member of Ellington's band in 1953, as a substitute for bassist Wendell Marshall. Mingus's notorious temper led to him being one of the few musicians personally fired by Ellington (Bubber Miley and drummer Bobby Durham are among the others), after an on-stage fight between Mingus and Juan Tizol.^[13]

Also in the early 1950s, before attaining commercial recognition as a bandleader, Mingus played gigs with Charlie Parker, whose compositions and improvisations greatly inspired and influenced him. Mingus considered Parker the greatest genius and innovator in jazz history, but he had a love-hate relationship with Parker's legacy. Mingus blamed the Parker mythology for a derivative crop of pretenders to Parker's throne. He was also conflicted and sometimes disgusted by Parker's self-destructive habits and the romanticized lure of drug addiction they offered to other jazz musicians. In response to the many sax players who imitated Parker, Mingus titled a song, "If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" (released on Mingus Dynasty as "Gunslinging Bird").

Based in New York[link]

In 1952 Mingus co-founded Debut Records with Max Roach, in order to conduct his recording career as he saw fit; the name originated with a desire to document unrecorded young musicians. Despite this, the best-known recording the company issued was of the most prominent figures in bebop. On May 15, 1953, Mingus joined Dizzy Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell, and Roach for a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, which is the last recorded documentation of the two lead instrumentalists playing together. After the event, Mingus chose to overdub his barely audible bass part back in New York; the original version was issued later. The two 10" albums of the Massey Hall concert (one featured the trio of Powell, Mingus and Roach) were among Debut Records' earliest releases. Mingus may have objected to the way the major record companies treated musicians, but Gillespie once commented that he did not receive any royalties "for years and years" for his Massey Hall appearance. The records though, are often regarded as among the finest live jazz recordings.

One story, possibly apocryphal, has it that Mingus was involved in a notorious incident while playing a 1955 club date billed as a "reunion" with Parker, Powell, and Roach. Powell, who suffered from alcoholism and mental illness (possibly exacerbated by a severe police beating and electroshock treatments), had to be helped from the stage, unable to play or speak coherently. As Powell's incapacitation became apparent, Parker stood in one spot at a microphone, chanting "Bud Powell...Bud Powell..." as if beseeching Powell's return. Allegedly, Parker continued this incantation for several minutes after Powell's departure, to his own amusement and Mingus' exasperation. Mingus took another microphone and announced to the crowd, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not jazz; these are very sick men."^[14] This was Parker's last public performance; about a week later he died after years of substance abuse.

Mingus often worked with a mid-sized ensemble (around 8–10 members) of rotating musicians known as the Jazz Workshop. Mingus broke new ground, constantly demanding that his musicians be able to explore and develop their perceptions on the spot. Those who joined the Workshop (or Sweatshops as they were colorfully dubbed by the musicians) included Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Jimmy Knepper, Charles McPherson and Horace Parlan. Mingus shaped these musicians into a cohesive improvisational machine that in many ways anticipated free jazz. Some musicians dubbed the workshop a "university" for jazz.

[edit] Pithecanthropus Erectus among other creations

The decade which followed is generally regarded as Mingus's most productive and fertile period. Impressive new compositions and albums appeared at an astonishing rate: some thirty records in ten years, for a number of record labels (Atlantic Records, Candid, Columbia Records, Impulse! Records and others), a pace perhaps unmatched by any other musicians except Ellington and Frank Zappa.

Mingus had already recorded around ten albums as a bandleader, but 1956 was a breakthrough year for him, with the release of Pithecanthropus Erectus, arguably his first major work as both a bandleader and composer. Like Ellington, Mingus wrote songs with specific musicians in mind, and his band for Erectus included adventurous, though distinctly blues-oriented musicians, piano player Mal Waldron, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and the Sonny Rollins-influenced tenor of J. R. Monterose. The title song is a ten-minute tone poem, depicting the rise of man from his hominid roots (Pithecanthropus erectus) to an eventual downfall. A section of the piece was free improvisation, free of structure or theme.

Another album from this period, The Clown (1957 also on Atlantic Records), with an improvised story on the title track by humorist Jean Shepherd, was the first to feature drummer Dannie Richmond. Richmond would be his preferred drummer until Mingus's death in 1979. The two men formed one of the most impressive and versatile rhythm sections in jazz. Both were accomplished performers seeking to stretch the boundaries of their music while staying true to its roots. When joined by pianist Jaki Byard, they were dubbed "The Almighty Three".^[15]

[edit] Mingus Ah Um and other works

In 1959 Mingus and his jazz workshop musicians recorded one of his best-known albums, Mingus Ah Um. Even in a year of standout masterpieces, including Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, John Coltrane's Giant Steps, Bill Evans' Portrait in Jazz, and Ornette Coleman's prophetic The Shape of Jazz to Come, this was a major achievement, featuring such classic Mingus compositions as "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (an elegy to Lester Young) and "Fables of Faubus" (a protest against segregationist Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus that features double-time sections).

Mingus witnessed Ornette Coleman's legendary—and controversial—1960 appearances at New York City's Five Spot jazz club. Though he initially expressed rather mixed feelings for Coleman's innovative music: "...if the free-form guys could play the same tune twice, then I would say they were playing something...Most of the time they use their fingers on the saxophone and they don't even know what's going to come out. They're experimenting." Mingus was in fact a prime influence of the early free jazz era. He formed a quartet with Richmond, trumpeter Ted Curson and saxophonist Eric Dolphy. This ensemble featured the same instruments as Coleman's quartet, and is often regarded as Mingus rising to the challenging new standard established by Coleman. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus was the quartet's only album.

Only one misstep occurred in this era: 1962's Town Hall Concert. An ambitious program, it was unfortunately plagued with troubles from its inception.^[16] Mingus's vision, now known as Epitaph, was finally realized by conductor Gunther Schuller in a concert in 1989, 10 years after Mingus's death.

[edit] The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and other Impulse! albums

In 1963, Mingus released The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, a sprawling, multi-section masterpiece, described as "one of the greatest achievements in orchestration by any composer in jazz history."^[17] The album was also unique in that Mingus asked his psychotherapist to provide notes for the record.

Mingus also released Mingus Plays Piano, an unaccompanied album, in 1963. A few pieces were entirely improvised and drew on classical music as much as jazz, preceding Keith Jarrett's landmark The Köln Concert in those respects by some 12 years.

In addition, 1963 saw the release of Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus, an album which was praised by critic Nat Hentoff.^[18]

In 1964 Mingus put together one of his best-known groups, a sextet including Dannie Richmond, Jaki Byard, Eric Dolphy, trumpeter Johnny Coles, and tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan. The group was recorded frequently during its short existence; Coles fell ill during a European tour. On June 28, 1964 Dolphy died while in Berlin. 1964 was also the year that Mingus met his future wife, Sue Graham Ungaro. The couple were married in 1966 by Allen Ginsberg.^[19] Facing financial hardship, Mingus was evicted from his New York home in 1966,.

[edit] Changes

Mingus's pace slowed somewhat in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1974 he formed a quintet with Richmond, pianist Don Pullen, trumpeter Jack Walrath and saxophonist George Adams. They recorded two well-received albums, Changes One and Changes Two. Mingus also played with Charles McPherson in many of his groups during this time. Cumbia and Jazz Fusion in 1976 sought to blend Colombian music (the "Cumbia" of the title) with more traditional jazz forms. In 1971, Mingus taught for a semester at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York as the Slee Professor of Music.^[20]

Later career and death[link]

By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in America known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a wastage of the musculature. His once formidable bass technique suffered, until he could no longer play the instrument. He continued composing, however, and supervised a number of recordings before his death. Eminent music journalist Stephen Davis sympathetically snapshot Mingus's final years in a rare piece titled "Ten Takes on Charles Mingus" published in Zero: Contemporary Buddhist Life and Thought, Vol. 3 (Autumn, 1979).

Mingus did not complete his final project of an album named after him with singer Joni Mitchell, which included lyrics added by Mitchell to Mingus compositions, including "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", among Mitchell originals and short, spoken word duets and home recordings of Mitchell and Mingus. The album featured the talents of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and another influential bassist and composer, Jaco Pastorius. Mingus died aged 56 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had traveled for treatment and convalescence. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River.

Legacy[link]

The Mingus Big Band[link]

The music of Charles Mingus is currently being performed and reinterpreted by the Mingus Big Band, which, starting October 2008, plays every Monday at Jazz Standard in New York City, and often tours the rest of the U.S. and Europe. Elvis Costello has written lyrics for a few Mingus pieces. He had once sung lyrics for one piece, "Invisible Lady", being backed by the Mingus Big Band on the album, Tonight at Noon: Three of Four Shades of Love.^[21]

In addition to the Mingus Big Band, there is the Mingus Orchestra and the Mingus Dynasty, each of which are managed by Jazz Workshop, Inc., and run by Mingus's widow Sue Graham Mingus.

Epitaph[link]

Epitaph is considered to be one of Charles Mingus' masterpieces. The composition is 4,235 measures long, requires two hours to perform, and is one of the longest jazz pieces ever written. Epitaph was only completely discovered during the cataloging process after his death by musicologist Andrew Homzy. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller. This concert was produced by Mingus's widow, Sue Graham Mingus, at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after his death. It was performed again at several concerts in 2007. The performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall is available on NPR. The complete score was published in 2008 by Hal Leonard.

Autobiography[link]

Written throughout the 1960s, Mingus's sprawling, exaggerated, quasi-autobiography, Beneath the Underdog: His World as composed by Mingus,^[9] was published in 1971. Written in a "stream of consciousness" style, it covered several aspects of Mingus's life that had previously been off-record.

In addition to his musical and intellectual proliferation, Mingus goes into great detail about his perhaps overstated sexual exploits. He claims to have had over 31 affairs over the course of his life (including 26 prostitutes in one sitting). This does not include any of his five wives (he claims to have been married to two of them simultaneously). In addition, he asserts that he held a brief career as a pimp. This has never been confirmed.

Mingus's autobiography also serves as an insight into his psyche, as well as his attitudes about race and society.^[22] Autobiographic accounts of abuse at the hands of his father from an early age, being bullied as a child, his removal from a white musician's union, and grappling with disapproval while married to white women and other examples of the hardship and prejudice.^[23]

Cover versions[link]

Considering the number of compositions that Charles Mingus wrote, his works have not been recorded as often as comparable jazz composers. About the only Mingus tribute album recorded in his lifetime was baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams's album, Pepper Adams Plays Charlie Mingus in 1963. Of all his works, his elegant elegy for Lester Young, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (from Mingus Ah Um) has probably had the most recordings. Besides recordings from the expected jazz artists, the song has also been recorded by musicians as disparate as Jeff Beck, Andy Summers, Eugene Chadbourne, and Bert Jansch and John Renbourn with and without Pentangle. Joni Mitchell sang a version with lyrics that she wrote for the song.

Elvis Costello has recorded "Hora Decubitus" (from Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus) on My Flame Burns Blue (2006). "Better Git It in Your Soul" was covered by Davey Graham on his album "Folk, Blues, and Beyond." Trumpeter Ron Miles performs a version of "Pithecanthropus Erectus" on his EP "Witness." New York Ska Jazz Ensemble has done a cover of Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song", as have Pentangle and others. Hal Willner's 1992 tribute album Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus (Columbia Records) contains idiosyncratic renditions of Mingus's works involving numerous popular musicians including Chuck D, Keith Richards, Henry Rollins and Dr. John. The Italian band Quintorigo recorded an entire album devoted to Mingus' music, titled Play Mingus.

Gunther Schuller's edition of Mingus' "Epitaph" which premiered at Lincoln Center in 1989 was subsequently released on Columbia/Sony Records.

One of the ultimate tributes to Mingus came on September 29, 1969 at a festival honoring him. Duke Ellington performed The Clown at the festival. Duke himself did Jean Shepherd's narration. As of this date, this recording has not been issued.

Personality and temper[link]

As respected as Mingus was for his musical talents, he was sometimes feared for his occasional violent onstage temper, which was at times directed at members of his band, and other times aimed at the audience.^[24] He was physically large, prone to obesity (especially in his later years), and was by all accounts often intimidating and frightening when expressing anger or displeasure. Mingus was prone to clinical depression. He tended to have brief periods of extreme creative activity, intermixed with fairly long periods of greatly decreased output.

When confronted with a nightclub audience talking and clinking ice in their glasses while he performed, Mingus stopped his band and loudly chastised the audience, stating "Isaac Stern doesn't have to put up with this shit."^[25] Mingus reportedly destroyed a $20,000 bass in response to audience heckling at New York's Five Spot.^[26]

Guitarist and singer Jackie Paris was a first-hand witness to Mingus's irascibility. Paris recalls his time in the Jazz Workshop: "He chased everybody off the stand except [drummer] Paul Motian and me... The three of us just wailed on the blues for about an hour and a half before he called the other cats back."^[27]

On October 12, 1962, Mingus punched Jimmy Knepper in the mouth while the two men were working together at Mingus's apartment on a score for his upcoming concert at New York Town Hall and Knepper refused to take on more work. The blow from Mingus broke off a crowned tooth and its underlying stub.^[28] According to Knepper, this ruined his embouchure and resulted in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the trombone - a significant handicap for any professional trombonist. This attack temporarily ended their working relationship and Knepper was unable to perform at the concert. Charged with assault, Mingus appeared in court in January 1963 and was given a suspended sentence. Knepper would again work with Mingus in 1977 and played extensively with the Mingus Dynasty, formed after Mingus' death in 1979.^[29]

Mingus was evicted from his apartment at 5 Great Jones Street in New York City for nonpayment of rent, captured in the film Mingus: 1968, by Thomas Reichman, which also features Mingus performing in clubs and in the apartment, shooting a shotgun, composing at the piano, and discussing love, art, and politics and the music school he had hoped to create.^[30]

Awards and honors[link]

• 1971 Guggenheim Fellowship (Music Composition)
• 1971: Inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
• 1988: The National Endowment for the Arts provided grants for a Mingus nonprofit called "Let My Children Hear Music" which cataloged all of Mingus' works. The microfilms of these works were given to the Music Division of the New York Public Library where they are currently available for study.^[5]
• 1993: The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".^[31]
• 1995: The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.
• 1997: Was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
• 1999: The album Mingus Dynasty (1959) was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
• 2005: Inducted in the Jazz at Lincoln Center, Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

Discography[link]

Filmography[link]

• 1959, Mingus contributed most of the music for John Cassavetes's gritty New York City film, Shadows.
• 1961, Mingus appeared as a bassist and actor in the British film All Night Long.
• 1968, Thomas Reichman directed the documentary Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968.
• 1991, Ray Davies produced a documentary entitled Weird Nightmare. It contains footage of Mingus and interviews with artists making Hal Willner's tribute album of the same name, including Elvis Costello, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, and Vernon Reid.
• Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog is a 78 minute long documentary film on Charles Mingus directed by Don McGlynn and released in 1998.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Charles Mingus

• Official website
• What Is a Jazz Composer—Liner notes from Let My Children Hear Music by Charles Mingus.
• Charles Mingus by Nat Hentoff
• MINGUS!—sonic.net
• Charles Mingus multimedia directory - Kerouac Alley
• Charles Mingus: Requiem for the Underdog by Alan Goldsher
• Charles Mingus at the Internet Movie Database
• Charles Mingus at the Notable Names Database

For the television executive, see John Hendricks

For the Australian swimmer, see Jon Henricks

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2011)

Jon Hendricks
Background information
Born	(1921-09-16) September 16, 1921 (age 90) Newark, Ohio, United States
Genres	Jazz
Occupations	Singer, lyricist
Years active	1957–present

Jon Hendricks (born September 16, 1921) is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists (such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie). Furthermore, he is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. For his work as a lyricist, jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz" while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive." Al Jarreau has called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".^[1]

Born in 1921 in Newark, Ohio, young Jon and his 14 siblings were moved many times, following their father's assignments as an A.M.E. pastor, before settling permanently in Toledo. There, Jon began his singing career at the age of 7. He has said: “By the time I was 10, I was a local celebrity in Toledo. I had offers to go with Fats Waller when I was 12, and offers to go with Ted Lewis and be his shadow when I was 13. He had that song ‘Me and My Shadow’. And he had this little Negro boy who was his shadow, that did everything he did. That was his act.”^[2] As a teenager, Jon's first interest was in the drums, but before long he was singing on the radio regularly with another Toledo native, pianist Art Tatum.

WWII[link]

After serving in the Army during World War II, Hendricks went home to attend University of Toledo as a pre-law major, courtesy of the G.I. Bill. Just when he was about to enter the graduate law program, the G.I. benefits ran out, and he realized that he would have to chart a different course. Recalling that Charlie Parker had, at a stop in Toledo two years prior, encouraged him to come to New York and look him up, Hendricks moved there and began his singing career.

Lambert, Hendricks and Ross[link]

In 1957, he teamed with Dave Lambert and Annie Ross to form the legendary vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross (LH&R). With Jon as lyricist, the trio perfected the art of vocalese and took it around the world, earning them the designation of the "Number One Vocal Group in the World" for five years in a row from Melody Maker magazine. Their multi-tracked album Sing a Song of Basie was one of the earliest examples of overdubbing.^[3] Hendricks typically wrote lyrics not just to melodies but to entire instrumental solos, a notable example being his take on Ben Webster's tenor saxophone solo on Ellington's original recording of "Cotton Tail", as featured on the album Lambert, Hendricks and Ross! (1960). His lyrics to Benny Golson's "I Remember Clifford" have been recorded by several other vocalists, including Dinah Washington, Carmen McRae, Nancy Wilson, Ray Charles, The Manhattan Transfer and Helen Merrill. After six years the trio disbanded for solo careers but not before leaving behind a catalog of legendary recordings, most of which have never gone out of print. Countless singers cite the work of LH&R as an influence, including Van Morrison, Al Jarreau and Bobby McFerrin. The song "Yeh Yeh", for which Hendricks composed the lyrics, became a 1965 hit for British R&B-jazz singer Georgie Fame, who continues to record and perform Lambert, Hendricks & Ross compositions to this day. In 1966 Hendricks recorded "Fire in the City" with the Warlocks, who shortly after changed their name to the Grateful Dead.^[4] Hendricks wrote lyrics for several Thelonious Monk songs, including "In Walked Bud", which he performed on Monk's 1968 album Underground.

In 1978 he created and starred in a play at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles entitled Evolution of the Blues, which was produced by attorneys Burton Marks and Mark Green.

Solo[link]

Jon Hendricks at Birdland

Pursuing a solo career, Hendricks moved his young family to London, England, in 1968, partly so that his five children could receive a better education. While based there he toured Europe and Africa, performed frequently on British television and appeared in the 1971 British film Jazz Is Our Religion (which focuses on the photographs of Val Wilmer) as well as the French film Hommage a Cole Porter. His sold-out club dates drew fans such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Five years later the Hendricks family settled in Mill Valley, California, where Hendricks worked as the jazz critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and taught classes at California State University at Sonoma and the University of California at Berkeley. The piece he wrote for the stage about the history of jazz, Evolution of the Blues, ran for five years at the Off-Broadway Theatre in San Francisco and another year in Los Angeles. His television documentary, Somewhere to Lay My Weary Head, received Emmy, Iris and Peabody awards.

Hendricks recorded several critically acclaimed albums on his own, some with his wife Judith and daughters Michele and Aria contributing. He collaborated with old friends The Manhattan Transfer for their seminal 1985 album, Vocalese, which won seven Grammy Awards. He has served on the Kennedy Center Honors committee under Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.

In 2000 Hendricks returned to his home town to teach at the University of Toledo, where he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Jazz Studies and received an honorary Doctorate of the Performing Arts. He was recently selected to be the first American jazz artist to lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris. His 15-voice group, the Jon Hendricks Vocalstra at the University of Toledo, performed at the Sorbonne in 2002. Hendricks has also written lyrics to some classical pieces including "On the Trail" from Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. The Vocalstra premiered a vocalese version of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" with the Toledo Symphony.

In the summer of 2003 Hendricks went on tour with the "Four Brothers", a quartet consisting of Hendricks, Kurt Elling, Mark Murphy and Kevin Mahogany. He has worked on setting words to and arranging Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto as well as on two books, teaching and touring with his Vocalstra. He has appeared in a film with Al Pacino, People I Know (2002) and also in White Men Can't Jump (1992).

In 2012, Hendricks appeared in the documentary film, No One But Me, discussing his former bandmate and friend, Annie Ross.^[5]

Discography[link]

• A Good Git-Together (1959, Pacific Jazz)
• Evolution of the Blues Song (1960, Columbia Records)
• Fast Livin' Blues (1961, Columbia)
• Jon Hendricks Recorded in Person at the Trident (1963, Smash Records)
• ¡Salud! João Gilberto, Originator of the Bossa Nova (1963, Reprise Records)
• Cloudburst (1972, live, Enja Records)
• Tell Me the Truth (1975, BMG Records)
• September Songs (1976, Stanyan Records)
• Love (1982, Muse Records)
• Freddie Freeloader (1990, Denon Records)
• Boppin' at the Blue Note (1994, live, Telarc Records)

Appears on

• George Russell - New York, N.Y. (1959, Decca)
• Thelonious Monk - Underground (1968, Columbia)
• The Legacy Lives On (2001, Mack Avenue Records)

with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross

• Sing a Song of Basie (1957)
• Sing Along with Basie (1958, Roulette)
• The Swingers! (1958)
• Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross! (aka "The Hottest New Group In Jazz") (1960)
• Lambert, Hendricks & Ross Sing Ellington (1960)
• The Real Ambassadors (1962)
• High Flying with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross (aka The Way-Out Voices of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) (1962)

with Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan

• Live at Basin Street East (1963, live)
• At Newport '63 (1963, live)
• Havin' a Ball at the Village Gate (aka Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan at the Village Gate) (1964, live)

References[link]

External links[link]

• On Stage at the Kennedy Center: The Mark Twain Prize 2002 – Behind the Curtain – Jon Hendricks from PBS
• Prototype Online: Inventive Voices podcast featuring an interview with Jon Hendricks – From the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation website.

Benny Bailey
Dexter Gordon, left with Bailey at the Village Vanguard, June 1977
Background information
Birth name	Ernest Harold Bailey
Born	(1925-08-13)August 13, 1925 Cleveland, Ohio United States
Died	April 14, 2005(2005-04-14) (aged 79) Amsterdam The Netherlands
Genres	Jazz, bebop, hard bop
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Trumpet, piano, flute
Years active	1940s -
Labels	Argo, Candid, Concord, MPS, Freedom, Enja, Ego Records, Gemini Records, Jazzcraft Records, TCB Records, Laika Records
Associated acts	Bull Moose Jackson, Scatman Crothers, The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, Quincy Jones, Tony Coe, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton

Benny Bailey, born Ernest Harold Bailey (13 August 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio – 14 April 2005 in Amsterdam), was an American bebop and hard-bop jazz trumpeter.^[1]

Biography[link]

Bailey had some training in piano and flute in his youth, but switched to trumpet, and concentrated on the instrument while at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the early 1940s he worked with Bull Moose Jackson and Scatman Crothers.^[1] He later worked with Dizzy Gillespie and toured with Lionel Hampton. During a European tour with Hampton he decided to stay in Europe and spend time in Sweden. This Swedish period saw him working with Harry Arnold's big band.^[1] He tended to prefer big bands over small groups and became associated with several big bands in Europe including The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band. Later he began to work with Quincy Jones and that led to a brief return to the United States in 1960. After that he migrated to Germany, and later the Netherlands.

In 1969 he played on Eddie Harris and Les McCann's album Swiss Movement which was recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival, even though it was not normally his style of music. Then in 1988 he worked with Tony Coe^[1] and he kept producing albums until 2000 when he was in his mid-70s.

Bailey died at home in Amsterdam on April 14, 2005.^[1]

Discography[link]

• Bennie Bailey Plays (Argo 1959)
• Big Brass (Candid 1960)
• Stockholm Sojourn (Concord 1964)
• Soul Eyes - (MPS 1968)
• Folklore In Swing (MPS 1966)
• The Balkan In My Soul(MPS 1968)
• Soul Eyes: Jazz Live at the Domicile Munich (MPS 1968)
• Mirrors (The Amazing Benny Bailey) (arranged & conducted by Francy Boland (Freedom 1971)
• Islands (Enja 1976)
• Serenade to a Planet (Ego 1976)
• East of Isar (Ego 1978) - The Sal Nistico-Benny Bailey Quintet
• Grand Slam (Jazzcraft 1978)
• While My Lady Sleeps (Gemini 1990)
• No Refill (TCB Records1994)
• Angel Eyes (Laika 1995)
• Peruvian Nights (TCB 1996)
• I Thought About You (Laika 1996)
• The Satchmo Legacy (Enja 2000)
• The Rainbow People (Steeplechase 2002)

References[link]

External links[link]

• BBC Radio 2
• All Music

Eddie Jefferson
Jefferson playing at Half Moon Bay California October 10, 1978 Photo: Brian McMillen
Background information
Born	(1918-08-03)August 3, 1918 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	May 9, 1979(1979-05-09) (aged 60) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Genres	Jazz
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, bandleader
Instruments	Vocals
Associated acts	Richie Cole

Eddie Jefferson (August 3, 1918 – May 9, 1979) was a celebrated jazz vocalist and lyricist. He is credited as an innovator of vocalese. (Jefferson himself claims that his main influence was Leo Watson 27/2/1898-02.5/1950. see Wikipedia entry), a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is "Moody's Mood for Love", though it was first recorded by King Pleasure, who cited Jefferson as an influence. Jefferson's songs "Parker's Mood" and "Filthy McNasty" were also hits.^[1]

Biography[link]

Jefferson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[2] One of his most notable recordings, “So What”, combined the lyrics of artist Christopher Acemandese Hall with the music of Miles Davis to highlight his skills, and enabled him to turn a phrase, into his style he calls jazz vocalese.

Jefferson's last recorded performance was at the Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago and was released on video by Rhapsody Films. He shared the stand with Richie Cole (alto sax), John Campbell (piano), Kelly Sill (bass) and Joel Spencer (drums). The performance was part of a tour that Jefferson and Cole led together. Their opening night in Detroit, Michigan was at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, a jazz club built in the 1930s that has played host to famous musicians including musicians who spanned the genre with artists as diverse as Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt.

A previously unreleased live recording from July 1976 was released in August 2009, Eddie Jefferson at Ali's Alley, with drummer Rashied Ali.

Eddie Jefferson was shot and killed at Baker's Keyboard Lounge on May 8, 1979, aged 60. He had left the club with fellow bandleader Cole around 1:35 a.m. and was shot while walking out of the building. A late-model Lincoln Continental was spotted speeding away from the scene. The driver was later picked up by Detroit police and identified as a disgruntled dancer with whom Jefferson once worked and had fired from a gig. The suspect was charged with murder, but was later acquitted in a Detroit trial.^{[citation needed]} External Link submitted below

Discography[link]

• 1961: Letter from Home (Riverside)
• 1965: The Jazz Singer (Inner City Records)^[3]
• 1968: Body and Soul (Prestige)
• 1969: Come Along with Me (Prestige)
• 1974: Things Are Getting Better (Muse)
• 1976: Still on the Planet (Muse, reissued in 1990 as Godfather of Vocalese)
• 1976: The Live-Liest (Muse)
• 1977: Main Man (Inner City)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Eddie Jefferson's Artist Page

ref>[1], WSU Virtual Motor City Collection.</ref>