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Don McGlynn's uncompromising and soulful documentary look at the tumultuous life of musician and rebel Charles Mingus is fascinating stuff. Mingus said of himself "I am half black man, half yellow man, but I claim to be a Negro. I am Charles Mingus, the famed jazz musician--but not famed enough to make a living in America." His statement summed up the conflict that plagued this musical genius his entire life: volatility, pain, prescience, and raw rage roiled inside a complex man, composer, bass player, and trombonist who transcended labels and refused to be pigeonholed into a single musical style--and who did not achieve real fame until late in his career. The documentary is full of well-preserved footage and contains interviews with many Mingus followers like Wynton Marsalis as well as performances by icons Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Gerry Mulligan. The film traverses past the musical legend with insight and information into Mingus's personal life, his civil rights activism, and his final triumph in the music world--just as his body began to deteriorate from Lou Gehrig's disease--to his eventual death in 1979. Mingus left a legacy composed of genius, vulnerability, brilliance, anarchy, and, as one friend noted, "the entire range of human emotion that is reflected in his music."
--Paula Nechak
From the back cover
Charles Mingus--Triumph of the Underdog is the first comprehensive documentary about jazz bassist, bandleader, and composer Charles Mingus. Mingus led a tumultuous life filled with trauma and frustration, joy and creativity. Not light enough to be considered white and not dark enough to fit into the black community, he was an outcast in American society who charted his own path. Likewise, his legacy as a 20th century composer reaches far beyond conventional jazz idioms.
Mingus apprenticed with people like Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, and Charlie Parker before going out on his own and becoming a musical force for more than a decade. When interest in his music waned at the height of the rock era in the mid-1960s, and one of his closest collaborators, Eric Dolphy, died, Mingus was institutionalized due to psychological problems. Upon his return to the music scene, he began playing more concerts and his record sales zoomed. This golden period of recognition ended when he contracted Lou Gehrig's Disease and his muscles began to deteriorate. He died in 1979.
Exhaustively researched, virtually everything used in this film is extraordinarily rare--newly unearthed performance footage, previously unpublished photographs, radio broadcasts, and private interviews. Abundant clips of Mingus in performance in the 1960s and 1970s perfectly illustrate both his joy and his rage. Nine years in the making, this lucid, involving portrait shows the many faces and tortured heart of a musical genius. He titled his 1971 autobiography Beneath the Underdog, but by the end of his life, with his ambition and resolute sense of purpose, the underdog ultimately triumphed.
Performances include "Epitaph," "Peggy's Blue Skylight," "Better Get Hit in Your Soul," "So Long Eric," "Sue's Changes," "Goodbye Porkpie Hat," and more. Produced by Don McGlynn and Sue Mingus. Directed by Don McGlynn.
