Beneath The Underdog: Charles Mingus (Canons) - Softcover

Mingus, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782118829 ISBN 13: 9781782118824

Publisher: Canongate Canons, 2019

Synopsis

Bass player extraordinaire Charles Mingus, who died in 1979, is one of the essential composers in the history of jazz, and Beneath the Underdog, his celebrated, wild, funny, demonic, anguished, shocking and profoundly moving memoir, is the greatest autobiography ever written by a jazz musician.

It tells of his God-haunted childhood in Watts during the 1920s and 1930s; his outcast adolescent years; his apprenticeship, not only with jazzmen but also with pimps, hookers, junkies, and hoodlums; and his golden years in New York City with such legendary figures as Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. Here is Mingus in his own words, from shabby roadhouses to fabulous estates, from the psychiatric wards of Bellevue to worlds of mysticism and solitude, but for all his travels never straying too far, always returning to music.

About this title

Review:

"A pure genius" (MILES DAVIS)

"A fascinating insight into Mingus' mind - unforgettable" (The Times)

"The purest of dynamite" (Rolling Stone)

"There has never been an autobiography like Beneath the Underdog. A riveting work of highly subjective reminiscences and tortured self-analysis" (RICHARD WILLIAMS)

"A shocking and brilliant book" (Q Magazine)

"An outlandish, brilliant autobiography" (Newsweek)

Book Description:

A blisteringly powerful self-portrait of 'The Angry Man of Jazz', contemporary of jazz genius Miles Davis

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Canons
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1782118829
• ISBN 13: 9781782118824
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320