ISBN: 0-88739-067-6
160 pp.
Size: 5 x 8
Hardcover
Price: $14.95
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Mingus/Mingus
Janet Coleman, Al Young
Charles Mingus had been suffering for some time with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) when he died in Mexico, of a heart attack, at age 56. Modern jazz lost perhaps its greatest bassist, an irreplaceable band leader and one of the 20th Century’s most exciting composers. But Mingus, known for his mercurial temperament and gargantuan appetites, was a many-sided genius who left behind scores of recordings and a rich musical legacy contemporary performers have only just begun to explore. Mingus was also a giant whose vast spirit and quirky personality touched countless lives, sometimes in inspiring ways. Janet Coleman and Al Young, teenage friends, were a couple of Ann Arbor beatnik college kids, hungry for the world and eager to write, when Mingus met and befriended them in the late 1950s. It is their special feelings for Mingus and their memories of his abiding presence in their lives that animate this book.
Written with profound affection, humor and respect, Mingus/Mingus is really about a couple of offbeat kids growing up in the flamboyant literary world of the Eisenhower/Kennedy Era with Mingus as their guide. It is also about a long-term friendship and creativity as a way of life.
Bio: JANET COLEMAN has written frequently for New York, The Village Voice, Vanity Fair, Mademoiselle, Book World, and Book Week. In collaboration with her husband, David Dozer, she also writes for stage, screen, radio, and TV, and is one-half of the Janet and David comedy team. She lives in Greenwich Village.
AL YOUNG was born in 1939, a native of Mississippi who grew up in Detroit and the San Francisco Bay Area, where has lived for most of his life. He is the award-winning author of several screenplays and more than 15 books of poetry, non-fiction and fiction. He travels extensively, lecturing and reading from his work, which has been widely translated.
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