Beneath The Underdog

Description

Charles Mingus is a musician, a mongrel musician who plays beautiful, who plays ugly, who plays lovely, who plays masculine, who plays feminine, who plays all sounds, loud, soft, unheard sounds, sounds, sounds, sounds ... Beneath the Underdog is the memoir of the Angry Man of jazz, Charles Mingus - the genius whose adventures began at the feet of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, and led him on a tour of every bottle, bar and bed in the world. An unparalleled self-portrait of an artist, Beneath the Underdog is a tour as dizzying, otherworldly, raging and sexy as the man and his music.

Charles Mingus was born in Arizona in 1922. He settled in New York in the 1950s, where he played and recorded with the leading musicians of his time, such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington. Mingus toured extensively throughout the world, including Europe, Japan, Canada, South America and the United States. He died in 1979. Both New York City and Washington, D.C., honoured him posthumously with a 'Charles Mingus Day'.

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 * *