Mingus dynasty
Mingus Dynasty 2022 at The Django. (L to R) David Kikoski, Wayne Escoffery, Boris Kozlov, David Lee Jones, Alex Norris, Adam Cruz, Conrad Herwig. Photo: Sarah Clare Simone.
The nimble and expert 7-piece Mingus Dynasty
Mingus Dynasty was the first band Sue Mingus organized after Charles Mingus’ death in 1979, collaborating with his own sidemen to honor his life and work. Although Mingus was a iconic and trailblazing bassist, he always said he was first and foremost a composer, and left behind over 300 compositions that deserved to be played, so a band carrying on his music became a natural, if unanticipated, mission. Today, four decades later, the powerful legacy of Mingus Music ignites bandstands while new generations of musicians add their individual voices and continue to celebrate and explore this rich and varied musical legacy. Mingus Dynasty is flexible in size, from the quintet tradition of Mingus Jazz Workshop-style to the more typical septet or octet, with arrangements by Jack Walrath, Jimmy Knepper, and current Mingus Big Band members who use their decades of experience playing in Mingus repertory bands to collectively arrange on the bandstand and express their unique musical personalities, for an exciting and authentically Mingus experience.
“Charles Mingus would be very proud of this band”
“Listening to a brilliant septet, one was struck by how well Mingus’s ensemble arrangements are now played, far more precisely than when he was alive. His original soloists were superb but it has taken 50 loving years for section players to reel off his complex orchestral visions. And how proud Charles would have been to find two Russians – bassist Boris Kozlov and trumpeter Alexander Sipiagian -among them, a living embodiment of his multi-racial dream.”
5-to-7-piece MINGUS DYNASTY Original legacy band. 2010 Promotional video