Charles Mingus
Indeed, there is a considerable rift between approaching a historicalsubject from either the perspective of an oral tradition of history oraccording to a more standard practice that privileges documentary evidenceand historical fact over narrative, anecdote and experience. Of course,there are reasons why one sort of history is often preferred over theother, and in the academy and other intellectual circles, the evidentiarytradition of history is generally preferred. Part of the reason for this isits ability to offer empirical verifiable truths that aren't subject toflawed recollection or narrative embellishment. Historical findings thatare based on evidence and other sorts of factual information give us ahistorical picture that, if incomplete, is, at least, relativelyindisputable, and those moments of dispute can be arbitrated by thestrength of other evidentiary claims. Nonetheless, although this processmight offer empirical truths, there are some things it can't tell us-likethe sort of character of a man. So when you're looking at a great musicianlike Charles Mingus, an evidentiary approach to the truth will only tell usso much. Indeed, we have his music on record, which tell us perhaps as mu
Indeed, part of Mingus' frustration was likely in that, as a visionary, heoften had ideas that others were unable to see or understand and he wassimply frustrated at the creating an impediment to the fruition of hisvision. We know also thathis formative musical experience came at that time by participating inmusical services at Church and listening to Duke Ellington on the radio. Indeed, weget a deeper understanding of what he was like and how he acted. On the evidentiary side, there are certain things we can and reallyshould know about Charles Mingus and his history. This was a particularly impressive development becauseit was exceptionally rare for a bass player, whose role was generallyconsidered to be as a supporting, rather than a lead instrument. There are certain thingswe can know about him for sure, like that he was born in Nogales, Arizonain 1922 to a family with an extremely diverse background. He developed a reputation for being difficult,which caused him to be fired from several big bands and thus he eventuallyestablished his own. Although he failed to be exceptionally successful with the first twoinstruments that he attempted to learn, the trombone and the cello, hediscovered the double bass in his teens, and due to intense study underLlyod Reese and others as well as the countless hours of practice that heput in, he developed his skills to the point where he began playing withbig bands in the 1940s. Thus, by combing our historicities andusing both an evidentiary and oral approaches to understanding a historicalfigure, we can get an exceptionally deeper and more complex understandingof an individual then if we simply limit ourselves to one understanding ofhistory and disregard the other one altogether. Nonetheless, Mingus preserved and in the 1950s he started to establish animpressive name for himself as a composer, above and beyond being a bandleader. In oralhistory, it doesn't really matter whether or not the stories contradicteach other in certain cases, because oral history is not about establishempirical fact-it is about gaining a greater insight into the character andpersonality of someone, and it allows us to have an experiential andemotional reaction to the personage in question. Thus, in this light, even the stories about his difficult oftenreflect back on his make-up as a complex and far-sighted individual who wasable to anticipate trends that others couldn't even imagine developing. Also, we see his commitment to approaching Jazz music as a composer and hisintriguing ideas about how improvisation can be "composed" and that bymixing improvisation and composition, he was able to create an exciting,vibrant, and vigorous form of music that was not quite like anything thathad ever been developed before. Indeed, by seeing Mingustalk and speak and hearing the sorts of stories that others told about him,we can see how his "difficult" personality and his well-known ire were alsomixed with an intense humor and a unique vision of the world around him.
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Acceptance Essays
