Customer Reviews

Beneath the Underdog

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are a fan of Charles Mingus' music, you will certainly enjoy this wonderfully bombastic character in his autobiography. His story has his life woven in with some fictionalized characters and segments "jazzed" in, which adds quite a peculiar nature to his work. However, you will never guess what segments are true and which aren't. The work is very peculiar as an autobiography, revealing more the conversations and the feelings he underwent through his travels as opposed to a straight narrative from beginning to end. His work goes through a path of flashbacks and such, with a major emphasis on women (esp. his lovers), the road, and his jazz music. The interesting people he meets in his travels are well interweaved, and really make the story. My only criticism is when this "jazz" story starts to ramble out into peculiar segments which seem to lose your attention. The work tends to well reflect the chaotic nature of this genius. It is also a treat to listen to his music while reading... One of the many pleasures I've undertaken in. Highly recommended reading.

Those looking for anything like a conventional musical bio should go to "Mingus, a Critical Biography" by Brian Priestley; "Underdog" isn't that at all; it's an artifact of Mingus' peculiar world-view at a particularly hard time in his life.

Mentally ill? Mingus was long noted for fits of depression (in spite of repeated success in the music industry, he nevertheless ended up working for the post office on a number of occasions) and a volcanic temper (he re-counts an on-stage knife-fight with Ellington trombonist Juan Tizol, but leaves out mention of his punching Jimmy Knepper in the mouth hard enough to break teeth). He sometimes channeled it for art: he was probably the first musician ever to release an album ("Black Saint") with liner notes from his psychoanalyst. In "Underdog", he recounts checking himself into Bellvue Hospital, in an ill-considered search for "some rest". That got him, he says, an offer of a lobotomy, but also yielded a song, "Hellview of Bellvue/Lock 'em Up", and he raised the interesting question: if a somewhat successful half-black jazz musician in 1960's America believed that people were out to steal from him and oppress him, was he acutely paranoid, just observant, or both?

Sexually escapist, and scatological? Well, yes, but before feminism, or political correctness, and not without pay-back: the man who bragged of trying to bury his misery in [...] and dope never apparently finds them to be a satisfactory release, and after all the orgies, writes a tune called "Half-Mast Inhibition". . .

So, listen to the music first. See the short b&w documentary. If you want accurate linear bio information or critical analysis, go to the Priestly book. Then put on "Black Saint", "Mingus Am Uh", or "Blues and Roots", and read this.

This is a good look at the life of Mingus, written in a very open, honest and conversational style. It isn't so much about his music life, as about his lifestyle that helped create the jazz he played. If you want an in-depth look at his recording career and concerts then look elsewhere, but if you want an in-depth look at the man then this is the place. You get plenty of stories of his childhood and various loves, as well as his experiences with being a pimp and in a psychiatric ward. An engrossing read, I gave it only four stars as I came away knowing very little about his music career, but that doesn't take away from the intimate nature of this autobiography and portrayal of the man.

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First of all, it was really surprising for me to see how much of the book has nothing to do with the music - this is a very personall confession, told in a form of a novel in which, accidentally, some of the characters (besides Mingus) have the names of Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and, since the depiction of Red Norvo is not very flattering (and he was very much alive when the book was published), he is "hidden" but instantly recognizible to anyone who has some knowledge of the illustrious carreer of Charles (not Charlie!) Mingus...

The hero of this autobiography/novel, very often presented in third-person narration, is very much concerned with spirituality and sexuality, so the important people from the author's life (family, friends, lovers, prostitutes, pimps, medical professionals) are often not the ones you've heard of before reading the book, while some familiar names (Fats Navarro, Nat Hentoff) are here because they were important for the main topic of the book. And the topic is Charles Mingus, the human being, the man - Afican, White and Asian /but dominantly black/ - musician, lover, son, father...

Naturally, if you DON'T know much about Mingus' remarkable music, you will hardly reach for the book but, if you do, this will be an interesting insight into his rich mind.
Eric Dolphy is mentioned only once, I don't remember the mention of people like Danny Richmond or Jimmy Knepper, but the web of a complex and intricate life is remarkably presented. Compared to the music, this is not the best work of Charles Mingus, but if you like his music you probably won't mind reading this... After all, there's a lot of sex, psychiatry, violence and music inside this book; there's something for everyone's taste.