Beneath the Underdog : His World as Composed by Mingus

Rating:
Summary: So you want to know about old Chazz, uh?
Review: Well, I must say that at first I was "misplaced" by this book: as an amateur bassplayer myself, if not a list of the songs and records, I would have expected a more "music oriented" book, since a musician (and a real genius) wrote it. Fact is that in the end you can't really separate the "life" from the "Charlie Mingus" icon itself and the music is therefore treated as a very far background. The private life of the man, especially his tormented rapport with the women, the father, along the road friends, take center stage. The most meaningful part of the book is the last quarter or so, in which he seems to open up a little more and you can sneak a peek into the man's secret very soul.
Not what imagined, but well worth the cost anyhow. It does offer a different point of view and gives Charles his right "human touch". It is also useful to the people that live outside the USA (like me and a few others!) simple, raw, precise elements to better understand the racial conflict in the Usa.

Rating:
Summary: Half of it is interesting, the rest is drivel. 2 1/2 stars.
Review: [...]I adore the charles mingus i know through his music - the one that can so profoundly intertwine feelings of anguish and ecstacy, anger and love, despair and triumph.

I approached this book hoping for two things. First, a story that artfully captured such diverse emotions as in his music. Second, I wanted to achieve somewhat of an actual understanding of how this man came to be the way he was, what experiences shaped his brilliant art etc.

My hopes rose even higher in the first couple chapters when i found that this was not going to be a conventional "autobiography" in that it looked to be more concerned with capturing his feelings and ideas about periods in his life, rather than trying to be historically accurate (in fact, most of it sounds to me to be a fabrication, or at least based on a very quirky interpretation of events). There are some moments when i felt a deep sympathy for Mingus, particularly with regard to his relationship with his father, and his feeling of isolation due to his diverse racial background.

Unfortunately, however, i found at least half (probably even more) to be a tedious exercise in narcissism, leaving me feeling disturbed by his shallowness and hypocrisy towards women, and a general failure on Mingus' behalf to try and understand others in his life. He repeatedly describes erotic encounters with numerous beautiful women (and only physically beautiful women, mind you), who, without failure, seem to fall hopelessly in love with him, despite the fact that he only ever seems stare at them or tell them how much he wants or loves them (based on his staring at them). As far as I can tell from this book, he didn't try particularly hard to ever get to know them as people, and is content to sleep around even when he proposes to love some particular one. What makes this unforgivable is that other themes in this book include that of seeing through physical differences, struggling to find acceptance with others despite mixed racial backgrounds, as well as frequent spiritual undertones. Further, on occasions he seems to hint that similar behaviour is wrong for a female, which is especially seen in his 2 page hypocrital berating of his step-mother for allegedly cheating on his father, who "only beat her up once!" (which is apparently okay, especially since she asked for it by not being quiet). It's sad that someone who saw through racial prejudice could not see through sexual prejudices.

So, I have to admit that I was quite disappointed with Mingus' character - flawed, i think, by more than just a bad temper. I think this is a valid criticism of even a quasi-autobiography, because it implicitly promotes such ideas.

Even so, I would have been willing to finish this book if i felt that it was expressed in a clever or artful way. The noveltly of his playful simulataneous 3rd and 1st person story telling is enjoyable, and sometimes very humorous, but it quickly lost it's appeal when I couldn't help but notice the underlying arrogance and the pathetic apologia he attempts in certain parts.

As I said earlier, there are some good parts in this book which will give the reader some insight into a strange man, who happens also to be the greatest jazz composer of the 20th century. So, as a story of a strange man this gets 2 1/2 stars because there's at least as much crap as the good stuff. As a supplement to the music of Mingus, this doesn't hold much value, indeed you may even find yourself disappointed, as i did. The music has far more to say than this book