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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
instead of like a normal book it sorta just reads like each chapter is a short story about either him having sex with a bunch of women or women being degraded (a woman fr eats horse shit). some parts were really well written but he barely mentions his music and that’s what i think most people are reading for
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
“I'm the only one besides my man who knows how he felt—cheap, low, still in love with a woman yet hating her for giving in to his cautious turning out. So ashamed he couldn't even look at her as he folded the money in his shirt pocket as Timmy i tongue had taught him to do. Was this the way a pimp felt, turning out his first girl and finding out he loved her? It couldn't be. Pimps are usually pretty calm people, cool but lively, full of laughs and jokes and some are even intellectuals. Surely they could never time she had feel like this. To be pimp, one would have to lose all feelings, all sensitivity, all love. One would have to die! Kill himself! Kill all feeling for others in order to live with himself. Not to think. To keep going because you're already going. Mingus couldn't be this... a pimp.” -p.154
“‘Every generation keeps discovering something left over on the top shelf and thinks they come up with something new!’” -p.169
“‘New York's cold, like a dying animal with nowhere to go but Central Park where the outdoors helps it remember New York isn't the only place in the world. The animal drinks that green into his soul, then goes back to the streets again and the tombstones with пеоn epitaphs flashing his life before him, as cold as the stone around him. He's aware he's no longer dying, he's long been dead. New York's his graveyard. He's a walking shadow of a man, lonely and tall as those windowpaned tombstones that haunt him into leaving his bed on Harlem's skid row, the lure that leads him downtown to see if it too has fallen with his dreams, the impulse impossible to resist, to look up and see if it is all still there, higher than any mountain with its sudden daring sweep into the sky. How else should a city with the standards of hell be built? With grass and trees, on the ground, where heaven can be seen by a small child just learning to walk or by a man six feet tall? No, New York is an ideal built high into the sky by those who own and run it, so they can look down and not see its filth and look out and see only space between the skyscrapers at eye's level with heaven. If a man can accept that city for the hell it is and still go on about his duties, it's truly God he's found.’” -p.173
“‘The real dangerous people are those who never came up from the streets 'cause they're basically cowards, they pay for everything—from good clean fucking to dirty killing. I'm sure killing themselves would be more preferable to them than braving the morn of that awakening day when they have to go to work and fight their own wars, cook their own food or fuck their own horrible women. Right now they buy all that from you and me.'” -p.196
“‘Every generation keeps discovering something left over on the top shelf and thinks they come up with something new!’” -p.169
“‘New York's cold, like a dying animal with nowhere to go but Central Park where the outdoors helps it remember New York isn't the only place in the world. The animal drinks that green into his soul, then goes back to the streets again and the tombstones with пеоn epitaphs flashing his life before him, as cold as the stone around him. He's aware he's no longer dying, he's long been dead. New York's his graveyard. He's a walking shadow of a man, lonely and tall as those windowpaned tombstones that haunt him into leaving his bed on Harlem's skid row, the lure that leads him downtown to see if it too has fallen with his dreams, the impulse impossible to resist, to look up and see if it is all still there, higher than any mountain with its sudden daring sweep into the sky. How else should a city with the standards of hell be built? With grass and trees, on the ground, where heaven can be seen by a small child just learning to walk or by a man six feet tall? No, New York is an ideal built high into the sky by those who own and run it, so they can look down and not see its filth and look out and see only space between the skyscrapers at eye's level with heaven. If a man can accept that city for the hell it is and still go on about his duties, it's truly God he's found.’” -p.173
“‘The real dangerous people are those who never came up from the streets 'cause they're basically cowards, they pay for everything—from good clean fucking to dirty killing. I'm sure killing themselves would be more preferable to them than braving the morn of that awakening day when they have to go to work and fight their own wars, cook their own food or fuck their own horrible women. Right now they buy all that from you and me.'” -p.196
Masturbatory (literally and figuratively). Very little music, a whole lot of sex.
one of the best jazz biographies we have, the storytelling shows Mingus' struggles as well as his artistry
"In other words I am three."
Even more self-aggrandizing than Miles' autobiography and at least twice as surreal and ridiculous. The book, which was published in 1971, but in the works for at least a decade and at one point reportedly counted +1.000 pages, is not so much a retelling of Mingus' musical/life story, as a kind of message. "My book was written for black people, to tell them how to get through life", Mingus said.
Most of it focuses on his youth and early years (ca. until he moved to NYC in the early 50's). As such, you learn nothing about the creation of his masterpieces (Pithecanthropus Erectus, Ah Um, The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady,...) or even his working methods, influences or crucial musical partnerships. Instead, he focuses on amorous, family and business relationships. Those are insightful, as they tell you something about circumstances for black artists in the 30's, 40's and 50's (and his views on race, entrepreneurship, society, etc.), but the focus on his sexual appetite becomes grating after a while (at one point, he supposedly spent two and a half hours with 26 Mexican prostitutes). The same goes for the bragging, brawny stories about pimping and the sexist vocabulary (most women get called bitches, whores or both).
Art Tatum, Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker make appearances, but others with whom Mingus had important or long-running relationships (Eric Dolphy, Dannie Richmond) barely get mentioned. So, if you want to learn about the musical accomplishments of this American giant, you have to turn elsewhere. In the meantime 'Beneath The Underdog', which is as numbing as it is enlightening, offers more than a glimpse of the complex psychology of this hugely conflicted, but endlessly fascinating artist.
(This was one of the first jazz-related books I ever read, some 30 years ago - many thanks to the Diepenbeek public library. It was exactly as monotonous as I remembered, though I got more out of it this time around. Maybe I've become a slightly better reader.)
Even more self-aggrandizing than Miles' autobiography and at least twice as surreal and ridiculous. The book, which was published in 1971, but in the works for at least a decade and at one point reportedly counted +1.000 pages, is not so much a retelling of Mingus' musical/life story, as a kind of message. "My book was written for black people, to tell them how to get through life", Mingus said.
Most of it focuses on his youth and early years (ca. until he moved to NYC in the early 50's). As such, you learn nothing about the creation of his masterpieces (Pithecanthropus Erectus, Ah Um, The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady,...) or even his working methods, influences or crucial musical partnerships. Instead, he focuses on amorous, family and business relationships. Those are insightful, as they tell you something about circumstances for black artists in the 30's, 40's and 50's (and his views on race, entrepreneurship, society, etc.), but the focus on his sexual appetite becomes grating after a while (at one point, he supposedly spent two and a half hours with 26 Mexican prostitutes). The same goes for the bragging, brawny stories about pimping and the sexist vocabulary (most women get called bitches, whores or both).
Art Tatum, Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker make appearances, but others with whom Mingus had important or long-running relationships (Eric Dolphy, Dannie Richmond) barely get mentioned. So, if you want to learn about the musical accomplishments of this American giant, you have to turn elsewhere. In the meantime 'Beneath The Underdog', which is as numbing as it is enlightening, offers more than a glimpse of the complex psychology of this hugely conflicted, but endlessly fascinating artist.
(This was one of the first jazz-related books I ever read, some 30 years ago - many thanks to the Diepenbeek public library. It was exactly as monotonous as I remembered, though I got more out of it this time around. Maybe I've become a slightly better reader.)
Absolute fever dream: 25% pretty interesting, 25% Dennis Reynolds an erotic memoir, 50% pimping and philosophy. Was quite compelling but really not sure what I just read, feel like there was maybe some better stuff in the 1500 pages he submitted to the editor. Love the choons tho
Brilliant for the first 150 pages, then loses its way somewhat with an over reliance on dialogue and no real narrative running through it.
Some of this was so ripe and outlandish I was ready to write Mingus off at times, but he kept winning me back with his narrative left-hooks and emotional right-hooks. It made me want to listen to every note he ever wrote or played.
Phew! Not really about the music was it? Some of the (dated) hep-speak was nice (daddyo) and the erotica was occasionally mildly arousing,
Special mention must be made of Billy the Pimp - deserving of his own title; surely one of the most disgusting characters in (presumably) fiction. He who gets his "old lady" to eat horse shit, to prove she would do anything for him! He who urinates all over a school teacher (and who luckily happens to have a donkey penis in his bag - don't we all?) Billy the Pimp deserves a series (played by Dave Chappelle?)
But really who would write this? Who would brag that much about their fuckability? - was mingus (shock) impotant? Is that too obvious?
Also the pimp stuff, I have never understood the pimp fantasy (so beloved of GangstaPlayarappas - tho' I liked Iceburg Slim's "Pimp" that was as far as I wanted to go on the subject) here Mingus (and Bird and Diz) are surrounded by women just itching to go on the game - Mingus "turns them out" then loses his respect for them (hmm, I wonder why?)
Maybe I'm just not a total misogynist - I understand NWA's plea
"Fuck flipping burgers
I want a 9-5 that I can be proud of
I can speak loud of"
But I would ALWAYS choose burger-flipping to making women fuck for money (my money)!
Special mention must be made of Billy the Pimp - deserving of his own title; surely one of the most disgusting characters in (presumably) fiction. He who gets his "old lady" to eat horse shit, to prove she would do anything for him! He who urinates all over a school teacher (and who luckily happens to have a donkey penis in his bag - don't we all?) Billy the Pimp deserves a series (played by Dave Chappelle?)
But really who would write this? Who would brag that much about their fuckability? - was mingus (shock) impotant? Is that too obvious?
Also the pimp stuff, I have never understood the pimp fantasy (so beloved of GangstaPlayarappas - tho' I liked Iceburg Slim's "Pimp" that was as far as I wanted to go on the subject) here Mingus (and Bird and Diz) are surrounded by women just itching to go on the game - Mingus "turns them out" then loses his respect for them (hmm, I wonder why?)
Maybe I'm just not a total misogynist - I understand NWA's plea
"Fuck flipping burgers
I want a 9-5 that I can be proud of
I can speak loud of"
But I would ALWAYS choose burger-flipping to making women fuck for money (my money)!