Better Git It in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus

Gabbard (jazz studies, Columbia Univ.; Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture; Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema) uses the life and work of the acclaimed jazz bassist and underrated composer Charles Mingus (1922–79) as a framework for a series of sketches and essays that capture the spirit of its multifaceted subject. Mingus was a politicized artist who employed trenchant satire both in his writing and in his playing. The opening biographical essay explores both the roots and the flowering of this attitude resulting in an artistic achievement that represented the finest jazz traditions (Louis Armstrong admired his musicianship) as well as a brave exploration of the possibilities of the genre using modern classical techniques. Of particular note is Gabbard's examination of Mingus's subversive 1971 autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, which turns into a fascinating and unprecedented investigation of the jazz autobiography as practiced by Mingus, Armstrong, and saxophonist Art Pepper. The comparison and contrast of the techniques of these musicians-turned-memoirists gives the heights of this overlooked genre its due.