Beneath the Underdog

Mingus by Mingus. These are the celebrated, wild, funny, demonic, anguished, shocking, and above all, profoundly moving memoirs of the late Charles Mingus, bass player and jazz composer. Composed eight years before his death in 1979, Beneath the Undersdog is the story of growing up in the Watts of the 20s and 30s, ruled by a strap-wielding father, a Bible-quoting stepmother, and an unremitting gear of the Lord; Mingus's outcast adolescent years; his apprenticeship, not only with jazzmen but also with pimps, hookers, junkies and hoodlums; and his golden years in New York City with such legendary figures as Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Charles Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie...