Charles Mingus

On May 15, 1953, five of jazz’s most influential musicians – Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, and Bud Powell – gathered at Toronto’s Massey Hall for what would result in their first and only known recording as a quintet. While only a small audience was able to experience it in person, this historic evening was captured on tape. The resulting album, The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall, would become one of the genre’s most essential and celebrated releases.

In January 2023, BMG continues their annual celebration of Jazzuary with four new vinyl reissues from the stellar Bethlehem Records jazz catalog. Titles from giants of the genre—Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane—have been pressed to 180 gram vinyl from remastered high-res 96 kHz/24 bit audio, ready for the next generation to discover these incredible recordings.

All four titles are now available to pre-order here.

Grammy Award-winning 14-piece jazz ensemble the Mingus Big Band just announced a weekly residency at Manhattan West’s spectacular new variety venue Midnight Theatre. Beginning October 26, the residency performances will be every Wednesday night with doors at 6:00pm and 9:00pm. The band celebrates the music of legendary composer and virtuoso bassist Charles Mingus, now in his centennial year.

On Wednesday, May 18th at 4 PM ET / 1 PM PT, Qobuz Live, Qobuz weekly livestream series, and Rhino Records will present a panel discussion, Celebrating Mingus Three in honor of the late Charles Mingus's centennial, life accomplishments and body of work, and the re-release of his 1957 Mingus Three album.

For 60 years, the legendary Impulse! Records has been home to the greatest jazz artists of all time, including John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Quincy Jones, and more. The orange-and-black imprint known as the House That Trane Built was a cultural beacon of progressivism, spiritualism, and activism throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

The daunting task of interpreting the music of Frank Zappa has made the iconized jazz-fusion composer/musician less often a cover project than one might expect.

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