My Morning Cup of Mingus

One thing I really appreciate about being single is that there isn’t anyone around to criticize. No one says anything when I leap out of bed at 5:45 am with my eyes still half closed with sleep to groove around the bedroom to Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug.” No one turns up their nose at the curry powder I add into the egg mixture for my omelet. And no one challenges my decision to turn my apartment into the auditory equivalent of a temple for Charles Mingus’s Blues and Roots.

Listening to Mingus this morning got me wondering… out of all of the jazz I have listened to over the course of my life, what is it about Charles Mingus that makes him so consistently appealing to my ear? What is the defining characteristic that makes me relate to his music? The reason came to me very quickly. Mingus’s music has no sharp edges.

It may be odd to say of the man who is known as “the angry man of jazz,” but Mingus’s music has a very smooth, mellow reverberation. His pieces are well-balanced. His tone is warm. What a different experience it is to listen to a Charles Mingus composition as opposed to Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman. I wonder if the reason isn’t all in the perspective of the bandleader?

A trumpet is a piercing instrument. A saxophone has an element is dissonance built in. There is no high relief in the sound of a bass. It is resonant and rich. It is the glue that joins the rest of the instrumentation. If Mingus directs from this perspective of unification, it’s no wonder his compositions project a well-developed sound. His music is not necessarily a showcase for his own instrument. Note that when the lead is taken by a saxophone or a trumpet or a baritone saxophone, the result is still the same. Solos are mature, tender, inviting. They are not brash or arrogant. And while they are self-confident, it is confidence without arrogance; each individual instrument is cohesive to the whole, each artist is a team member whose contribution bolsters the performance of the group.

Now, I am certain there are other artists about whom this could be said and my quick evaluation is likely the very reason I am head over heels in love with Bossa Nova. But for now let’s just leave it with me professing my longstanding and undying admiration for Charles Mingus. After all, one of the best things about being single is that there is no one to contradict me, either.