Charles Mingus was born on April 22, 1922 on an army base in Nogales, Arizona and. However, Mingus grew up without …show more content…
Charles Mingus). He also later would play and record with other musicians such as “Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Duke Ellington” (B. Charles Mingus). By the 1950’s Mingus had started his own recording and publishing companies in order to protect his compositions (B. Charles Mingus). One of the companies that he had formed was the Jazz Workshop, which was made in 1964. Mingus started the Jazz Workshop in the admits of the assassination of JFK and the civil rights movement (Charles Mingus, Charles Mingus Day). Not only was the company co-produced by a woman, but this woman would later become Charles Mingus’s wife. The Jazz Workshop allowed smaller and less known musicians to come and perform in concert and have it recorded. The Jazz Workshop produced “over 100 albums of his music and wrote over 300 scores” (B. Charles …show more content…
By 1977, Charles Mingus was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and was unfortunately confined to a wheelchair (B. Charles Mingus). However, he made a comeback and gradually recovered and although he could no longer play the piano or write music due to the disease, this did not stop Mingus and composed using only a tape recorder and his voice. However, at the age of 56 Mingus passed away in Cuernavaca, Mexico on January 5, 1979 due to a heart attack and was soon cremated (B. Charles Mingus). Interestingly enough, on the day of Mingus death 56 whales had been beached in Mexico and had to be burned as