Music: An Epitaph Comes Back to Life

(2 of 2)

Epitaph's initial failure to find an audience was one of many frustrations in Mingus' turmoil-strewn life. Born in Arizona but raised in Watts, Los Angeles' black ghetto, Mingus studied trombone and cello before taking up the bass. As a member of Lionel Hampton's band in the '40s, Mingus revolutionized the way jazz bass was played with his crisp, lightning-fast solos. Performances with the likes of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Bud Powell established him as a master of modern jazz. Mingus was Falstaffian in his lusts and furies, as well as in size: he once fired a musician onstage for taking a lackluster solo, frequently chided audiences for inattention and justifiably railed against pop music's largely white corporate establishment for cheating black artists.

His contempt for the industry was undoubtedly heightened by his experience with Epitaph, on which he worked sporadically for nearly 30 years. In 1962 United Artists agreed to sponsor a performance at New York City's Town Hall. But the concert date was abruptly advanced by a month, thereby cutting drastically into Mingus' composing and rehearsal time, and the record company allowed him only enough money to hire about two-thirds of the ensemble his score called for. As a final indignity, the Town Hall stagehands, unprepared for overtime, brought down the curtain while the band was still playing. Only two tracks from that concert were ever released, on a record over which the composer had no control.

Mingus gave up on Epitaph after that fiasco, although he reworked several of its themes for combo performances. Schuller believes the entire suite fully deserves a second life and a wider audience. More than just an apotheosis of Mingus the composer, Schuller argues, Epitaph is a "prophetic force" that "goes beyond Ellington in suggesting a solution to the problem of extended form in jazz. Some jazz musicians will argue that even thinking of 'extended form' is Eurocentric -- 'Why do we need it?' they ask -- but Epitaph is clearly an analog to the great classical forms."

"My music," Mingus once wrote, "is evidence of my soul's will to live." Epitaph is strong proof that his musical spirit is still blowing strong.