Epitaph (Mingus)

Epitaph is the master work of jazz musician Charles Mingus. It is a composition which is more than 4000 measures long, requires two hours to perform and was only completely discovered during the cataloguing process after his death. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller, in a concert produced by Sue Mingus at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after Mingus's death.

Ground Breaking Work

The New Yorker wrote that Epitaph represents the first advance in jazz composition since Duke Ellington's "Black, Brown, and Beige," which was written in 1943. The New York Times said it ranked with the "most memorable jazz events of the decade". Convinced that it would never be performed in his lifetime, Mingus called his work Epitaph declaring that he wrote it "for my tombstone."

Related Topics:
The New Yorker - Duke Ellington - The New York Times

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