So how much do you know about Charles Mingus? He’s a pretty major figure in jazz, being the guy who took up large ensemble jazz after Duke Ellington, moved it into the second half of the 20th Century, and started experimenting with different forms, time signatures, and tonalities. He covered everything from the blues to free jazz (and really presaged the whole free jazz movement). Classical music and music from non-European cultures also find their way into his compositions, which are everything from blues tunes to suites, ballet scores, and tone poems. It’s kind of hard to know where to start but this Wikipedia entry is a good place.

In relation to Mingus Live in the Underworld I’ll point out a few things that I found interesting about the poem and maybe will help you make some sense of it.

Unlike Ellington and the older generation Mingus got pretty political and was known for overt statements like Fables of Faubus which is referenced in the poem at the end. Here’s the version with lyrics, titled Original Faubus Fables.

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat is also referenced and quoted in the bass a few times; this is one of Mingus’s more well known tunes and has been covered by a lot of people. Just for fun, here’s a really awesome Joni Mitchell cover where she put words to the tune and original solos, in a collaboration with Mingus. Jazz/rock guitarist Jeff Beck had a hit with it, at least as far as jazz/rock guitarists have hits.

‘Boogie’ is in the text in a few places, probably because of Boogie Stop Shuffle. (“…sacred music of the Boogie Stomp Shuffle.”, “boogie man god”) I also detect a reference to the seminal album The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady. (“saints and sinners in a netherworld symphony”)

There are a lot of crazy stories about Mingus, and he was known to have a violent streak. I think all the ‘swings his axe’ stuff references a story about Mingus attacking trombonist Juan Tizol with a fire axe while they were both in Duke Ellington’s band. It’s a true story- Tizol pulled a knife on Mingus who then ran backstage and grabbed the axe and ran on stage swinging. This led to Mingus being the only person Duke ever fired from the band. Duke’s reasoning was, Tizol pulled the knife on everybody but never actually used it, so he stayed; but Mingus was actively swinging the axe and he had to go. Also, Mingus wrote a highly fanciful ‘autobiography’ called Beneath The Underdog that exacerbated the rumors and stories and contributed to his legend and is referenced in the poem.