Beneath The Underdog

By: Charles Mingus

Narrated by: Mark Ebulue

A fascinating insight into Mingus' mind - unforgettable – The Times

A pure genius – Miles Davis

The purest of dynamite – Rolling Stone

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.
©1998 Charles Mingus (P)2019 Canongate Books Ltd

I'm Lost

About 5 years ago I had a friend ask me who my top 4 all time jazz musician are and I listed Charles Mingus as my number one.
After listening to this version of his life and I'd like to believe I understood the picture being painted of his life in this telling and while I still believe he was the greatest bass player ever,..This was truly the worst written, worst told, immaturely illustrated and superficially focused piece of (I really hesitate to call it) literature. Because I so appreciate his artistic quirks I listened to the entire book hoping that even one nugget of real value would be revealed. Hint....It wasn't. To date I have read or listened to 8 stories of the lives of what I would consider the most incredible jazz figures to walk the earth. Most if not all of them were considered geniuses in their element. Their stories as "crazy" as their lives were at time were all told with clarity. This felt like a middle school student with no restrictions or structure on telling the story, wrote it!!

It's not about music at all.

This book is profane. I stopped it because it's about nothing but sex with a small hint about Mingus as a musician. If there were half as much detail put into Mingus the musician as wasted on his sexual prowess, this could possibly be bearable. This is far too graphic and unnecessary.