Wes Freeman's Reviews > Beneath the Underdog

Thoroughly complicated autobiography of highly original jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. Intensely philosophical, the role of jazz in Mingus' life (or at least the parts of it he put in this book) seems to be so all-encompassing that its incidental; like why is a dude gonna waste time talking about air in his autobiography? This ain't a music book, it's a Mingus book, and Mingus was one conflicted dude. Starts with memories of his childhood in Watts, precedes through his psychically destructive relationships with two women (they were a threesome), his attempts to reconcile innate idealism with learned misanthropy. Shares fond memories and interesting anecdotes about his fellow musicians, heaps scorn on his detractors, and presents us with a world so particular and individualistic, it's almost cosmologically Mingusian.