By Flavio Massarutto & Squaz, translated by Nanette McGuiness (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-309-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-310-3
Charles Mingus Jr. was born on April 22nd 1922 in Nogales, Arizona. He was a musical prodigy perpetually held back and frustrated by the response of other people to the colour of his skin. “The Angry Man of Jazz” died in January 1979, having battled all his life whilst composing and performing some of the most groundbreaking music of all time. When you hear some you will either love it or loathe it.
That’s the facts. Anything else you need can be found on Wikipedia or in countless books written about – or by – him…
That kind of dry data isn’t what this celebration is about. Instead, journalist and author Flavio Massarutto and magazine illustrator/educator/graphic novelist Pasquale Todisco – AKA Squaz (Toutes les obsessions de Victor, Diabolik, Pandemonio) – have successfully captured the feeling and flavour of the man and his music, crafting visual cuts of key moments to make a conceptual album of his embattled existence and lasting legacy.
‘Track 1: Eclipse’ focuses on 1940 and a Hollywood backlot where extras in a cheap jungle picture discuss the appalling conditions in their other job. Once more, Charlie advocates merging their union with a white one…
The man is driven. Nothing in life keeps him from the world of words and music inside his head for long…
‘Track 2: Pithecanthropus Erectus’ finds him in New York City in 1956, meeting music critic Nat Hentoff and sharing his ideology and inspiration. It’s taken from the latest release for the astounding Charlie Mingus Jazz Workshop. Two years later and jobbing composer and film scorer Mingus almost yields to commercial pressures in ‘Track 3: Nostalgia in Times Square’…
An activist and resister all his life, the small victories against institutionalised racism start to build as the performer makes waves at the Antibes Juan-les-pins Festival 1960 in ‘Track 4: What Love’. The seduction of the senses crafted throughout comes in waves of limited-colour palette comic snippets, blending reportage with fantasy sequences and is here augmented by Squaz’s reproductions of classic Mingus record sleeve designs.
Here The Clown, Tijuana Moods, Mingus Dynasty and Blues and Roots bring us to the height of the Civil Rights revolution as ‘Track 5: Fables of Faubus’ depicts the response to Arkansas State Governor Orval Faubus closing schools to black students…
With war officially declared, the relentlessly impassioned and driven musician pushed ever deeper into music and social justice before ‘Track 6: Self-portrait in Three Colors’ details how it all proved too much. However, after referring himself to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric assessment, Mingus was caught in racist red tape and only barely escaped an illegal lobotomy…
One of the jazz man’s greatest sins in the eyes of supremacists was miscegenation. Mingus’ relationships with white women (he married two of them) was apparently fed by a drive to unite eternally divided polarities and is addressed in metaphor via ‘Track 7: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady’, after which ‘Track 8: Passions Of A Man’ jumps to the end days when inevitable fame and success were marred by declining health.
Unable to perform on his beloved bass, Mingus moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico for treatment and ultimately surrendered to “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” (ALS). The hallucinogenic end is pictured with grace and wonder before a posthumous scattering of his ashes in the Ganges, all seen through the eyes of his widow Susan Mingus (née Graham)…
The lasting importance of the man is seen from a child’s perspective in ‘Track 9: Epitaph’ before the soul of Mingus is displayed in ‘Bonus Track: Sophisticated Lady’. Harking back to 1972, it shows a true and perfect moment as a concert at Yale is disrupted by a hoax bomb threat. With the hall evacuated and cops trying to hustle him out, Mingus ignores everything and keeps on playing…
Accompanying the conceptual wild ride, an author’s Afterword shares Massarutto’s take on the project and this volume also includes suggestions for further enjoyment in what ‘To Read’, ‘To Hear’ and ‘To See’…
Just like its subject matter, Mingus follows a radical muse, eschews fact and formula and takes us into the heart and soul of a giant, both scary and almost beyond understanding.
This intensely personal assessment and interpretation is less a biography and more a heartfelt paean of appreciation, channelling and exploring the hard, harsh tone of troubled times where talented, dogged souls fought for recognition and survival in a world determined to exploit and consume them.
© 2021 Coconino Press. © 2021 Flavio Massarutto, Squaz. © 2023 NBM for the English version.
Mingus will be published in August 2023 and is available for pre-order now.
Most NBM books are also available in digital formats so for more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/