Eric Mingus

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Eric Dolphy Mingus (born July 8, 1964 in New York City ) is an American blues and jazz singer , composer and the youngest son of Charles Mingus .

Live and act

Eric Mingus is the son of Charles Mingus' third wife, Judith Starkey; it was named after the recently deceased Eric Dolphy , who had played in his father's band, Charles Mingus. He grew up in Upstate New York , where his family moved when he was eight years old; as a teenager he studied the poetry of Langston Hughes and TS Eliot and appeared in plays. As a young adult he was an amateur boxer and trained with Floyd Patterson ; After a short study visit to Berklee College of Music (vocals and bass) in 1985, he toured as a vocalist with Bobby McFerrin , Carla Bley and Karen Mantler , on whose album My Cat Arnold (1988) he participated. In 1994 he moved to London at the invitation of Ray Davies , where he formed a duo with trumpeter Jim Dvorak ; In 1999 the joint album This Isn't Sex was created .

He then lived in Berlin and Copenhagen, where, in addition to his appearances at various jazz festivals, he taught vocal improvisation; he also participated in a Charles Mingus workshop at London's Community Music House . During his career he worked a. a. with the Mingus Big Band , Hubert Sumlin , Elliott Sharps Band Terraplane , Todd Rundgren , Elvis Costello , Nick Cave , Steven Bernstein , Catherine Sikora , Erik Lawrence and Levon Helm . He also worked on producer Hal Willner's projects , such as the 2005 Harold Arlen tribute album Stormy Weather .

In 2000 he released his debut album Um ... Er ... Uh , the title of which ironically refers to his father's 1959 LP Mingus Ah Um ; Too many Bulletts ... not Enough Soul followed in 2002 . In 2007, Healin 'Howl was created on the intuition label . His own compositions span stylistically blues , rock and jazz ; he also wrote film music for three documentaries and his own projects. In 2009 he performed with Wolfgang Puschnig at the Saalfelden Jazz Festival . With Dave Amram he interpreted the jazz poems by Langston Hughes ( The Dream Keeper , 2012). His radical reinterpretation of the opera Tommy at the Adelaide Festival 2015 (with saxophonist Catherine Sikora, among others) was panned by criticism. In 2017 he released the album Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper with David Amram . In 2018 he toured Europe with Elliott Sharp's Fourth Blood Moon . In the same year he presented the album Chrysalis with Sikora , which reflects Vladimir Nabokov's preoccupation with butterflies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Biographical portrait with Peter Aaron
  2. ^ Review of Andy Gill's album (2002) in The Independent
  3. Portrait at wacbiz.com ( Memento from September 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. Tommy review - frustratingly misguided adaptation of the Who's rock opera The Guardian , March 4, 2015
  5. Concert announcement (Stadtgarten Cologne)
  6. Eric Mingus & Catherine Sikora: Chrysalis. In: Citizen Jazz. May 31, 2020, accessed June 23, 2020 .