Mingus evaded stylistic boundaries and straddled genres with a lusty, furious intensity that lasted 40 tempestuous years. He grew up in Los Angeles, where he had a frustrating time with both the trombone and the cello and eventually settled on the double bass, receiving lessons from Red Callender. He took some composition tuition, and began writing his first pieces as early as 1939: one of them, what Love, wasn't recorded until the 60s. He played with Louis Armstrong's big band in 1942, and from there took further lessons on the bass, from a classical musician named Herman Rheinschagen: his early dedication to accruing a complete technical mastery set Mingus aside from most other bassists of his generation. Still based in Los Angeles, he continued to work in clubs during the middle 40s and sometimes sponsored his own record dates, often billed as 'Baron' Mingus. In 1947 he found a place in Lionel Hampton's touring band, with whom he recorded the feature Mingus Fingers, but he only stayed a year; after that, he became part of the Red Norvo Trio, with Tal Farlow, recording for Discovery. In 1951 he settled in New York, where he worked with a variety of leaders and established his own record label, Debut, in 1952. This began documenting Mingus's work during the period, which was increasingly marked by an acknowledgement from other musicians that he was one of the masters of his instrument: despite a dreadful temper and resorting to violence at seemingly every opportunity, he had the highest musical respect from his peers. He co-founded a Jazz Composers' Workshop with such kindred spirits as Teddy Charles and John Laporta, and in 1955 finally began leading significant groups of his own, with such sidemen as J R Monterose, Mal Waldron, Bud Powell, Elvin Jones, Jackie McLean, Bill Hardman and Eddie Bert. The groups gigged around New York and at the Newport Jazz Festival, and achieved some stability when Dannie Richmond, who became Mingus's closest musical confrère, arrived on drums at the end of 1956.

The period 1957–65 was Mingus's golden age. He worked continuously with a core group that usually numbered around seven or eight musicians: among his sidemen were some of the most individual players of the time, including, besides some of those already mentioned, Booker Ervin, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Knepper, John Handy, Pepper Adams, Roland Kirk, Ted Curson, Jaki Byard, Roland Hanna, Charles McPherson, Richard Williams and Charlie Mariano, all of whom blossomed and did a lot of their best work under the leader's direction. They were the performers in Mingus's 'workshop', not so much a band but a giddy, revolving ensemble where players came and went at the leader's whim, where musical projects of the grandest kind started and stopped just as abruptly, and where the conflicting ambitions of nightclub jazz and the concert platform constantly collided. There were European tours, hungrily documented by semi-official recordings, and festival appearances, but all of these were simply addenda to a formidable group of studio recordings: Blues And Roots (Atlantic, 1959), Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959), Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid, 1960), Oh Yeah (Atlantic, 1961), The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (Impulse!, 1963) and – most outrageously titled of all – Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Impulse!, 1963) are only the most important in an astonishing body of work. In its mixing of grand compositional ambition – particularly the mighty Black Saint And The Sinner Lady, the one Mingus artefact which seems to specifically nod to his great influence, Duke Ellington – and spontaneous, jam-session feel – the sort of atmosphere which pervades most of the records at one time or another, even though it is jamming on an exalted scale – Mingus's music on record is surely unique. A concert at New York's Town Hall in 1962, planned as a celebration of his progress, turned out to be a shambles, with the hot-tempered Mingus smacking Jimmy Knepper in the mouth (and ruining his embouchure), and the recorded results a piecemeal travesty which took many years to be properly presented on record.

After the European tour of 1964, though, Mingus lost some of his notoriety. Compared to some of the new figures on the free-jazz scene, he was no longer such an outlaw. His personal life drifted into turmoil: in debt, and depressed, he withdrew from performing for a time, only to be forced back into it by his financial position. He assembled new bands and enjoyed a fresh prominence when the long-awaited (by its author, at least) publication of his autobiography, Beneath The Underdog, took place in 1971. He assembled a new repertory of Mingusian characters for his bands, including George Adams, Jack Walrath, Don Pullen, Hamiet Bluiett, Hugh Lawson and others, with the faithful Dannie Richmond back in the fold. Compared to the earlier records, the 70s albums seem tame and conventional, but on their own terms they are full of fine music. In 1976, though, Mingus's health began to fail, and although he collaborated with the singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell on a final project, his spirit was spent.

His legacy is complex, and yet universal. So much of the music of the past 30 years has its pre-echoes in the work of the various Mingus bands: one can hear him in the music of such diverse figures as David Murray, Misha Mengelberg and John Zorn. His passion for the jazz past of Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton prefigured the revivalism of today, even though he might have sneered at it; his insistence on instrumental excellence is followed in the high standards of execution which have become a norm among young players. His berating of inattentive audiences looks forward to a state where jazz is respected as art-music, yet the noisy, turbulent feel of all his own bands asks listeners to participate in a communal, unstuffy exhilaration. He didn't like free jazz and he scorned players who did no more than copy Charlie Parker's licks, but he couldn't evade the principles which he knew underscored jazz's real achievements. The many obsessions of this extraordinarily difficult man continue to haunt the music, some 30 years after his death.

Biography from Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia (2005).

If you'd like more information, check out The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2002) or The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (2007), both of which are still in print.