Frankie Lee Sims born 30 April 1917

Frankie Lee Sims (April 30, 1917 – May 10, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and electric blues guitarist. He released eighteen sides during his career, one of which, "Lucy Mae Blues" (1953), was a regional hit. Two compilation albums of his work were released posthumously.  Sims was the cousin of another Texas blues musician, Lightnin' Hopkins, and he worked with several other prominent blues musicians, including Texas Alexander, T-Bone Walker, King Curtis and Albert Collins. Sims is regarded as one of the important figures in post-war Texas country blues. 

Sims was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Henry Sims and Virginia Summuel. He claimed he was born on February 29, 1906, but 1906 was not a leap year, and April 30, 1917, is generally accepted as his birth date. He was the nephew of the Texas blues singer Texas Alexander and the cousin of the guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins. Both Sims's parents were "accomplished guitarists". 

His family moved to Marshall, Texas, in the late 1920s. At the age of 12 he learned to play the guitar from the blues musician Little Hat Jones and ran away from home to work as a musician. In the late 1930s Sims had a dual career as a teacher in Palestine, Texas, on weekdays and a guitarist at local dances and parties on weekends. When the United States entered the Second World War at the end of 1941, he enlisted and served in the Marine Corps for three years. After the war Sims made Dallas his home, where he pursued a full-time career in music. 

                              

Sims's style of guitar playing was to produce rhythmical patterns over and over, but with a slight change in each repetition, giving his music an "irresistible dance beat". He produced a "twangy, ringing" sound on his electric guitar, which was "irresistible on fast numbers and stung hard on the downbeat stuff".  In Dallas, Sims performed in clubs with the blues guitarists T-Bone Walker and Smokey Hogg. In 1948 he recorded two singles for Blue Bonnet Records, but his first success came in 1953 when he recorded his song "Lucy Mae Blues" for Art Rupe's Specialty Records, which was a regional hit. The Encyclopedia of the Blues called "Lucy Mae Blues" a "masterpiece of rhythm and good humor". Sims continued recording songs for Specialty through the mid-1950s, many of them not released at the time. 

Along with Lightnin' Hopkins and Lil' Son Jackson, Sims is regarded as "one of the great names in post-war Texas country blues". According to the Encyclopedia of the Blues, he had a "considerable" influence on other musicians in Dallas. T-Bone Walker acknowledged Sims's influence on his style of playing, and Hopkins got some ideas from him. Sims also guided several musicians at the start of their careers, including King Curtis and Albert Collins. 

In 1957 he moved to Johnny Vincent's Ace Records and recorded several songs, including "Walking with Frankie" and "She Likes to Boogie Real Low", which AllMusic called "mighty rockers". Members of his band in 1957 were Willie Taylor (piano), Jack White (tenor saxophone), Ralph Morgan (bass), and Jimmy "Mercy Baby" Mullins (drums). Sims also recorded with other blues musicians, including his cousin Hopkins, and performed on several of their records. In the early 1960s Hopkins took advantage of the folk blues revival, but Sims faded into obscurity. 

In 1969 the blues historian Chris Strachwitz located Sims to record him for his Arhoolie label. Sims died soon after, on May 10, 1970, in Dallas at the age of 53. The cause of death was pneumonia brought on by poor health. At the time of his death he was reported to have had a drinking problem and was under investigation regarding a "shooting incident". 

(Edited from Wikipedia)

Frank Parker born 29 April 1903

Frank Parker (April 29, 1903* – January 10, 1999) was an American singer and radio and television personality. 

Parker was born Frank Ciccio on April 29, 1903 in New York City. He studied at the Milan Conservatory of Music. Though Italian-American, he became associated with Irish songs. He started out in vaudeville and on Broadway, appearing in the shows What’s in a Name? (1920), No Other Girl (1924)  and a revival of No, No, Nanette (1925-26). In 1926, he began singing with Harry Horlick’s Orchestra, an association which led to two Vitaphone shorts with the band in 1929 and 1935. 

An October 30, 1930, newspaper listing shows Parker singing on the Van Heusen Program on WABC in New York City. Also, in the early 1930s, he was a featured singer with Donald Voorhees and his orchestra on the Bond Sunshine Program on WEAF in New York City. This led to a stint as the featured singer on The Jack Benny Program (the slot that would later be filled by Kenny Baker and Dennis Day). This raised his profile tremendously.

Parker's tenure with Benny ended in the fall of 1935. When Michael Bartlett replaced Parker on the program, a newspaper article noted: "[Benny] turned Frank Parker into a tenor with a keen sense of humour ... Frank Parker asks $3,000 a week from theatrical booking agents, and usually gets it." 

In 1934, he sang in the all-star film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round and was the m.c. in Romance in the Rain. In 1935 he got his own bona fide starring role in a movie, an independent musical produced in Astoria, Queens called Sweet Surrender.  That same year, Parker briefly had his own radio show, The Atlantic Family on Tour, which was heard on 36 CBS stations. In September and October 1936, Parker and Ramona (no last name printed) were featured on a 15-minute weekly program on WEAF in New York City and WMAQ in Chicago.

In 1937 he appeared in the Broadway show Howdy Stranger, and began singing on Andre Kostelanetz’s radio program, an association that would last into the 1940s. Parker was also the featured male singer on Your Home Front Reporter, which was broadcast on CBS in 1943. From 1944 through 1946 he co-starred in the long-running musical Follow the Boys (1944-46) with Jackie Gleason, Gertrude Niesen, and Buster West. 

                          

Starting in 1949, the advent of television gave his career a new shot in the arm. The Teleways Company advertised "156 brilliant 15 minute musical programs," episodes of the Frank Parker Show that were available to radio stations via transcription. The 1950s saw Parker become a member of the Little Godfreys cast of singers on Arthur Godfrey Time and Arthur Godfrey and His Friends until around 1956. Parker had known Godfrey since the 1930s.

He began appearing on the variety shows, giving performances on the shows of Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Mike Douglas through the early 60s. He was also a co-host on the game show Bride and Groom in the 1950s, and appeared in the film Paris Follies of 1956. 

Married twice, Parker outlived both wives and never had children. At the age of 94 he moved in with his sister, telling her he didn't want to die in a nursing home with strangers. In recent years, he still liked to drink a glass of cognac while paging through The New Yorker magazine. 

He died at the age of 95 on January 10, 1999, in Titusville, Florida. His hobbies included golf, polo, and reading. He rarely stepped out without donning a French beret and knotting his ascot just so. Parker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Travalanche * some sources give April 29, 1906, or July 1, 1906as birth dates)

Billy Lamont born 28 April 1930

 Billy Lamont (April 28, 1930 - June 3, 2012) was a professional dancer, R & B singer and songwriter. 

Billy Lamont (sometimes spelled La Mont) was an Afro-American R&B singer whose death in 2012 passed unnoticed, apart from a mention in a local New Jersey newspaper. Biographical information about him on the Internet is virtually non-existent. The following is largely based on an interview with Dan Kochakian in Blues & Rhythm magazine during March 2001. 

Mount Airy

Born Ray Pamade Denson , in  Mount Airy, Surry County, North Carolina, he moved to Georgia at a young age and later to New Jersey, probably Irvington. He would remain a resident of the Garden State for the rest of his life. Ray was a very good dancer and started to dance professionally in 1951, taking on the professional name of Billy Lamont. His singing career started more or less by accident in 1956 when he was recruited as a last-minute replacement for H-Bomb Ferguson on a show that also featured Chuck Willis and Solomon Burke, among others. 

                               

By that time he had already written several songs and in 1957 he gave a tape of his songs to Arthur Candino who was an A&R man for Savoy Records. Candino liked what he heard and invited Lamont to do a session in New York City on July 25, 1957. Billy was a little nervous, as he had not been singing for very long and he was in awe of the session musicians, people like Sammy Price (piano) and Kenny Burrell (guitar). But it turned out well and "I Got A Rock 'n' Roll Gal"/"I'm So Sorry" was released in October, on Savoy 1522. 

In December 1958 he released, “Tom Cat"/"Millie", for the tiny Candelo label, with King Curtis on sax. This was followed by what some consider being his best rocker; the Little Richard- styled "Country Boy", with backing by the Upsetters. However, it was the slow flip-side that was promoted, "Can't Make It By Myself", which was in the style of Gene Allison's "You Can Make It If You Try". Allegedly, it was Billy's biggest seller, though it didn't make the national charts. 

A second OKeh single, "I'm Gonna Try"/"Now Darling" (1960) featured the same accompaniment: Grady Gaines and the Upsetters, the Gibraltars on backing vocals and arranger Robert Banks on piano. In June 1960, Billy did a one-off session for the King label, resulting in the single "Hear Me Now"/"Come On Right Now", the top side being a virtual clone of "Bony Moronie", but not as powerful.  

The next time Lamont appeared on record, it was uncredited. In the wake of Chris Kenner's success with "I Like It Like That", Lloyd Price reissued a 1959 recording by Kenner, "Don't Make No Noise", on his Prigan label in September 1961. The flip-side, "The Right Kind Of Girl", was also credited to Chris Kenner, but was actually sung by Billy Lamont. 

It wasn't until 1965 that Billy recorded again. "Shake And Jerk"/"Girls, Girls, Girls" was one of the first releases on the new Bang label, produced by Gene Redd. The same year "So Called Friend"/"(Darlin') Please Come Home" was released on Johnny Brantley's Bran-T label, in the soul style that was so popular in the mid- and late 1960s. 

"(Zap! Pow!) Do the Batman"/"Do the Thing" was recorded for Atlantic in January 1966 with Gate Wesley and his band, one of the first Batman records. Billy's final record in the 60’s was "Sweet Thang"/"Please Don't Leave" (20th Century Fox), released in 1968, but the backing track was already recorded in June 1966 with Jimi Hendrix on guitar. 

The 1970s brought very few new releases by Lamont. "Communications Is Where It's At, Parts 1 & 2” was credited to Billy the Baron & His Smokin Challangers, released in 1976. Probably Lamont's final release was the 12-inch maxi single "The Man With the Master Plan"/"The Cowboy", credited to Billy Lamont & the Unn Band, issued in 1980. After which he produced and recorded some gospel recordings for Jet Records, but it is not clear if these have been released. About the 1990s it is assumed that he had retired from the music scene by then. 

Billy Lamont died on June 3, 2012, at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, aged 82. 

(Edited from tims.blackcat.nl . The 2^nd out of only two photographs of Lamont  is taken from the cover of the Blues & Rhythm magazine where all his information was sourced)

Jimmie Skinner born 27 April 1909

Jimmie Skinner (April 27, 1909 – October 27, 1979) was an American country and bluegrass music singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist. He also was known for a mail-order record business and retail store in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Skinner was born in Blue Lick, near Berea, Kentucky. In his teens, he moved with his family to Hamilton, Ohio in 1926 where he found work in a factory. In 1928, he heard recordings by Jimmie Rodgers that impressed him so much that he bought a guitar and set out to be a singer and began to perform on local radio stations. He and his brother Esmer unsuccessfully auditioned for Gennett Records in 1931 and Bluebird Records in 1941. Skinner began to write songs and continued to perform in his local area. Ernest Tubb landed a hit with Skinner's composition "Let's Say Goodbye (Like We Said Hello)" in 1946. The following year Skinner saw his first record releases on Red Barn, a custom vanity label based in Chicago, Illinois and Kansas City, Missouri. 

                             

After moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, Skinner met Lou Epstein, a former sales manager for King Records then operating his own label, Radio Artist. Epstein signed the singer to a managerial and recording contract in 1949; a cover of Jimmy Work's "Tennessee Border" became Skinner's first chart hit. 

Skinner's early records were notable for their sparse instrumentation, usually backed by electric mandolinist Ray Lunsford. Skinner's early sides have been cited as an influence on Johnny Cash, who covered his chain gang song "Doin' My Time" for Sun Records. Other Skinner compositions that became country and bluegrass standards are "Will You Be Satisfied That Way" and "Don't Give Your Heart to a Rambler". 

In the early 1950s, Epstein opened The Jimmie Skinner Music Center, a Cincinnati mail-order and retail record store that advertised heavily on WCKY-AM and other country music stations. Skinner also hosted a one-hour remote dee jay broadcast from the store's display window. Throughout the early 1950s Skinner recorded for Capitol Records (1950–53) and Decca Records (1953–56), but his most successful label association was with Mercury Records between 1957 and 1961. His late 1950s recordings of "What Makes a Man Wander", "Dark Hollow" and "I Found My Girl in the USA" reached the top 10 of the Billboard charts. 

He also recorded duets with Connie Hall, a frequent guest on his radio show over WNOP-AM in Newport, Kentucky. Resisting Mercury's attempts to change his signature style, he joined Starday Records. After Epstein's 1963 death from a brain tumour, Skinner's career fell into a decline. He later became a fixture on the bluegrass festival circuit and resumed his recording career, primarily album releases for small labels including Rich-R-Tone. 

Skinner never became a major star but he was always busily connected with the industry through his music store and his radio and touring work. In 1974, he decided to move to Nashville; he thought it more suited to his songwriting ideas, but he still continued to tour his beloved Kentucky and Ohio. 

It was on such an occasion that, following a show near Louisville, he complained of pains in his arm and immediately headed for his Henderson, Nashville home, where he died on 27 October 1979, presumably as the result of an heart attack. Noted writer John Morthland described his style as ‘Unusually eloquent. He was probably the most underrated of those who sought to follow in the footsteps of Jimmie Rodgers and always less maudlin than most white country blues singers.’ 

In 2003 Bear Family Records issued Doin' My Time, a five-CD boxed set collecting all of Skinner's surviving Red Barn, Radio Artist, Capitol, Decca and Mercury recordings, plus a sixth disc of Skinner reading from his unfinished autobiography. (Edited from Wikipedia & The Encyclopedia of Popular Music)

Jimmy Hughes born 25 April 1935

Jimmy J. Hughes (April 25, 1935 – April1 -1997)*  is an American former rhythm and blues singer, whose biggest successes in the mid-1960s, notably his hit "Steal Away", were important in the early development of the Muscle Shoals music industry. 

Hughes, a cousin of Percy Sledge, was born and raised in Leighton, Alabama, close to Muscle Shoals. He began singing in a gospel quartet, The Singing Clouds, while at high school. In 1962, he auditioned for record producer Rick Hall at his FAME Studios. Hall was impressed, and recorded Hughes on a song, "I'm Qualified", that Hall had co-written with Quin Ivy. The record was leased to the Guyden label in Philadelphia, but was not a hit. Hughes returned to his day job at a rubber factory, and began singing secular R&B songs in local clubs. 

                             

Early in 1964, he returned to Hall with a powerful ballad he had written, "Steal Away", partly based on the gospel song " Steal Away to Jesus", and recorded the song in one take, backed by the studio rhythm section of guitarist Terry Thompson, keyboardist David Briggs, bassist Norbert Putnam and drummer Jerry Carrigan. Hall and his friend Dan Penn then promoted the record around radio stations in the South, and it rose to # 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

The record has been cited as "a prototype not only for subsequent great soul singers such as Johnnie Taylor and Al Green, but also would help define the signature Muscle Shoals sound."On the basis of Hughes' record, Hall signed a national distribution deal with Vee-Jay Records for his FAME label. Hughes' follow-up record, "Try Me", reached # 65 on the Hot 100, and he recorded an album, Steal Away, released on the Vee-Jay label, which included the first songwriting collaborations between Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. He also toured with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Bobby Womack and others.

Hughes' next few singles were unsuccessful, as Vee-Jay Records diverted their attention to The Beatles and The Four Seasons, and then folded. However, in 1966, after the success of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman", Hall negotiated a new deal for his label to be distributed by Atlantic Records. Hughes returned to the charts with "Neighbor, Neighbor" (# 65 pop, # 4 R&B), "I Worship the Ground You Walk On" (# 25 R&B), and "Why Not Tonight" (# 90 pop, # 5 R&B), before moving to the Atlantic label itself with "It Ain't What You Got" (# 43 R&B, 1968). 

Early in 1968, Hughes moved to Stax Records, where his recordings were issued on the subsidiary Volt label. His first record for the label, "I Like Everything About You", reached # 21 on the R&B chart, but later records were less successful. At the time, Stax was undergoing a major reorganisation with new management and new artists. Although his records, including a 1969 album Something Special, were produced by label boss Al Bell, Hughes later stated that he felt like the "low man on the totem pole" at the label, and became frustrated by what he saw as a lack of promotion. 

He also tired of touring and being away from his family, and in 1970 gave up recording and performing. He retrained, and got a government job making parts for nuclear power plants in the Tennessee River Valley, in later years only singing as a member of the congregation of his local church in Leighton. 

*Wikipedia gives date of birth as 3 February 1938 whereas most others give birth date as April 25, 1935, also one source gives the year 1934. Now this is where I have to tread carefully as whilst researching about Jimmy Hughes I have come across a great many web sites that report of his death from cancer on 1 April 1997, including Alabama Music Office, All Music Guide, Soulful Kinda Music, and “findagrave.com”. Yet Wikipedia state that reports of his death are incorrect. So if anyone can help me solve this mystery please do.   (Edited from Wikipedia)

Aaron Bell born 24 April 1921

Samuel Aaron Bell (April 24, 1921 - July 28, 2003) was an American jazz double-bassist. 

Bell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. When he was a child, Bell's mother taught him to play the piano. In high school, he learned the trumpet and the tuba. Bell entered Xavier University in New Orleans in 1938 and was introduced to the bass violin, for which he showed an immediate and natural affinity that startled and impressed his teachers. Xavier bandmaster Allegretto Alexander assigned bassist Bell to both the university’s stage band and swing band. 

Bell graduated in 1942 and spent the next four years in a U. S. Navy Band in Indiana. Immediately after being discharged from the Navy, Bell returned to Muskogee to teach music and take charge of the Manuel Training High School Concert and Marching Band, which he led to a championship at the all-state competition in Enid. 

This career phase ended when Bell sat in with Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy band when it played in Tulsa. He toured with Kirk for a year, then entered New York University and earned his first Master’s degree, in music education, in 1951. He resumed performing, first with Teddy Wilson at the Embers Club in New York, then freelanced with such luminaries John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Lester Young , Stan Getz, J. J. Johnson, Lucky Millinder, Jimmy Lunceford, and Cab Calloway. He also led the Aaron Bell Trio, based at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills.

                              

In 1960 Bell was offered a position in Duke Ellington's orchestra opposite drummer Sam Woodyard. He left Ellington's orchestra in 1962, and went on to play with Dizzy Gillespie before taking a series jobs on Broadway as a pit musician. 

Ellington, Strayhorn & Bell

He served as bassist, arranger and pianist and conductor for Sammy Davis, Jr., then worked as staff bassist for the NBC studio orchestra, played numerous Broadway shows; and recorded frequently, scoring several albums in his own name for the MGM, RCA and Herald labels. 

Bell was a resident artist at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City from 1969 to 1972. At La MaMa, he wrote music for Ed Bullins' one-act plays, produced as Short Bullins in 1972, and for William Mackey's Family Meeting. His music for Bullins' plays also went on tour with the Jarboro Company, named after Caterina Jarboro and directed by Hugh Gittens, on their 1972 Italy tour. During this tour, the company performed Bullins' one-acts and Richard Wesley's Black Terror in Milan and Venice. 

Bell gave a performance of his original compositions, including the pieces he wrote for those plays, on March 19, 1972, as part of the Music at La MaMa concert series. He also wrote the music for the Cotton Club Gala, which was originally produced at La MaMa in 1975. 

In 1969, Bell joined the music faculty of Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. His tenure there included more than 10 years as chair of the Performing Arts Department and a wide range of other responsibilities, including creating and the directorship of the instrumental and jazz program and serving as professor of theory, counterpoint, orchestration and jazz. Bell earned a second Master’s degree and Doctorate in theory and composition from Columbia University. He was considered the foremost academic authority on Ellington’s music. 

In the 1980s, he returned to the piano. Bell retired from active performance in 1989 and died in 2003, at the age of 82, at the Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. 

(Edited from okjazz.org & Wikipedia)

Vicky Lane born 23 April 1926

Vicky Lane (April 23, 1926 – August 1, 1983) was an Irish-American film actress who also worked as a singer. 

Vicky Lane was born Grace Patricia Rose Coghlan to an aristocratic family in Dublin, Ireland in 1926. At a relatively young age, she had already traveled around the world twice before finally settling with her family in Mexico, and later, Beverly Hills. 

As a teenager, her first Hollywood role was in 1942. But became better known for her role as the Ape Woman Paula Dupree in the horror film The Jungle Captive (1945, directed by Harold Young), a role she took over from Acquanetta, who had played the character in two previous instalments of Universal's Ape Woman film series. It was followed by supporting roles in films such as The Cisco Kid Returns (1945) after which she quit acting to pursue other interests. 

On May 27th, 1944, Vicky married film actor Tom Neal in Las Vegas, NV. She was 16 years of age at the time, and Tom was nearly twice her age. Both were rising stars in Hollywood, and both came from affluent families. Furthermore, they were madly in love, so their wedding was by all appearances a match made in heaven. Certainly, bigger and better things for the both of them were just around the corner, or so it seemed. Sadly, this was not to be. 

Vicky separated from Tom on July 4th, 1949. During the divorce proceedings, which were covered by both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Examiner, Vicky cited Tom's "unreasoning jealousy" and his mental and physical cruelty as grounds for their divorce. According to Vicky, she "couldn't go to the corner store to buy a pack of cigarettes without being accused of associating with other men." Their divorce was finalized on August 8th, 1949. 

             Here's "The Trolley Song" from above album.

                             

Lane later married jazz musician and bandleader Pete Candoli in 1953, with whom she had a daughter. In 1958, the couple divorced. Lane did record two singles with Candoli in 1955 for Sunset Records. The songs were ‘S Wonderful backed by I Ain’t Got Nothing but the Blues, and Global Blues backed by I Love a Parade. Given the odd titles and range here, these were likely made to serve as demos, and Candoli was able to get her some press. Lane signed with RCA in February 1959, after Candoli brought her to the attention of Bob Yorke, head of the label’s West Coast operations. 

Candoli also arranged the songs for her only solo album, which she recorded with the Candoli Orchestra in 1959 for RCA,” I Swing for You “ on which she performed songs in the jazz-oriented style like Love Is Not Born, My Romance, The Song Is You and The Trolley Song. The orchestra included musicians such as Jimmy Rowles, Barney Kessel, Alvin Stoller, and Joe Mondragon, along with a host of additional percussionists.Billboard noted in its December 1959 mention of the album, “Watch this girl, she has talent." 

Oddly, this was the only LP she recorded. After this she seems to have vanished into obscurity except for the fact that she left Hollywood in 1963 and lived in Florida where she died August 1, 1983 at the age of 57 from natural causes. 

(Edited mainly from Wikipedia with various morsels of information found scattered over the web)

Charles Mingus born 22 April 1927

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader.

Music was always considered important in the Mingus family. Growing up in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Mingus was exposed to classical music through the piano and violin lessons of his two older sisters. Mingus's parents bought him a trombone when he was eight years old, but he felt uncomfortable with the instrument and soon took up the cello, which he loved. He switched to the double bass--the instrument on which he would build his reputation--in high school, where his fellow orchestra members included future jazz stars Dexter Gordon and Chico Hamilton. During his late teens Mingus augmented his classroom studies with private lessons; his tutors included jazzmen Joe Comfort and Red Callender, as well as a former bassist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Herman Rheinschagen. 

Mingus's activity in the jazz scenes of Los Angeles and San Francisco began even before he graduated from high school. In 1940 he replaced his former teacher, Red Callender, in Lee Young's band; the following year he joined Louis Armstrong's organization, where he remained until 1943. As "Baron Mingus" he led various ensembles of his own, but it was as a member of Lionel Hampton's band that he began to revolutionize jazz bass playing with his highly charged, lightning-fast solos. Economic pressures prompted Mingus to briefly drop music for a job with the U.S. Postal Service until 1950, when vibraphonist Red Norvo invited him to be part of a trio that would also include guitarist Tal Farlow. The Red Norvo trio attracted national attention for introducing the West Coast's "cool jazz" to a wide audience. 

In 1951 Mingus relocated to New York City, a hothouse of jazz creativity where he worked regularly with such musicians as Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker. In 1953 he joined the band of his idol, Duke Ellington, but when a personality clash between Mingus and another band member led to a violent altercation, Mingus became one of the few musicians ever fired by Ellington. During the mid-1950s Mingus began to mature as a composer, modifying conventional forms by adding the startling rhythmic contrasts that would become his trademark. Some listeners found his music disturbing, but to others it was challenging and stimulating. 

Mingus's energy led him to engage in many activities during the late 1950s, in addition to composing and upholding his reputation as one of the greatest soloists of all time. Angered by the unfair treatment meted out to musicians by major recording labels, Mingus established Debut Records in 1952. From 1953 to 1955, Mingus gave written contributions to the Jazz Composers Workshop, but in 1955 he founded his own workshop, based on his belief that written notation was not equal to his composing style. 

                   

During the early 1960s Mingus experimented with free-form jazz and also wrote some of his most richly textured, rhythmically complex music, including such pieces as "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" and the album Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. His influence on the young bass players of the day was incalculable, but, ironically, he gave up playing bass at this time. Instead he played piano, "on which he resembled a watery Thelonious Monk," according to jazz critic Whitney Balliet in his book Such Sweet Thunder. 

Mingus's behavior became increasingly erratic; frequently he ignored contracts, walked offstage early, or spent more time haranguing audiences about their ignorance and inattention than he did playing. Band members were routinely upbraided--even physically attacked--onstage for making mistakes or failing to show the proper attitude. Grappling with deep-seated psychological problems, Mingus dropped out of the music scene in the mid-1960s to concentrate on writing an autobiography. In 1968 he was evicted from his New York City apartment, and much of his written music was lost in that episode. 

When Mingus finally returned to music--and the bass--in June, 1969, he was motivated mainly by economic pressures. To his surprise he found himself accorded the status of an elder statesman. His stream-of-consciousness autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, was published in 1971, the same year he received a Guggenheim fellowship for composition. He became a part-time instructor at the State University of New York in Buffalo; wrote music for films; collaborated with singer Joni Mitchell on her tribute recording Mingus; and traveled extensively with his workshop. In 1974 Mingus organized what Leroy Ostransky, author of Understanding Jazz, deemed "the greatest jam session since the expression was coined," which was recorded and released as Mingus at Carnegie Hall. 

By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). His once formidable bass technique declined until he could no longer play the instrument. He died at the age of 56 on January 5, 1979

in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had traveled for treatment and convalescence. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River.   (Edited mainly from musicianguide.com)

Here’s a clip of “So Long Eric” Charles Mingus – Bass, Eric Dolphy - Sax, Bass Clarinet and Flute, Clifford Jordan - Tenor Sax, Jaki Byard – Piano, Dannie Richmond – Drums. Johnny Coles – Trumpet. Norway on April 1964.