Charles Mingus’ 104th Birthday Celebration with the UA Jazz Ambassadors

($15-$25 tickets | 6:30pm & 8:30pm Shows) Join the Jazz Ambassadors, the University of Arizona’s premier small-group jazz ensemble, in a tribute performance to Charles Mingus, one of the historical masters of jazz music, as we celebrate what would have been his 104th birthday.

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) was a major figure in twentieth-century American music: a virtuoso bassist, pianist, composer, and bandleader. Born in Nogales, Arizona and raised in Watts, he was shaped by church music and early exposure to Duke Ellington. He studied bass and composition formally while learning directly from jazz masters, touring in the 1940s with Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Lionel Hampton.

In New York, he worked with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Ellington, and quickly emerged as a bandleader. By the mid-1950s, he had formed his own publishing and recording companies and founded the Jazz Workshop to support new composers. His work moved to the forefront of the avant-garde, producing landmark recordings such as *Mingus Ah Um* and *The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady*, among more than 100 albums and 300 compositions.

His large-scale works and collaborations, including *Revelations* and ballet projects, established him as a leading composer. He also taught at SUNY Buffalo and published his autobiography *Beneath the Underdog*. After being diagnosed with ALS in 1977, he continued composing by dictation until his death in 1979.

Mingus received major honors, including Guggenheim grants, and is widely regarded as one of the most original American composers of the twentieth century.