Remembering jazz great Charles Mingus who was born 100 years ago

Remembering jazz great Charles Mingus who was born 100 years ago

Transcript¹

The inventive compositions of jazz bassist Charles Mingus and his volatile² personality loom³ large in the jazz world.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

Charles Mingus would have turned 100 today. The jazz bassist is often mentioned in the same sentence as Duke Ellington as one of America's greatest composers.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES MINGUS' "BETTER GET HIT IN YO SOUL")

RUSSELL HALL: He figured out how to internalize the entire expression of human emotion in music.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Russell Hall is a bassist and composer in New York City.

HALL: I feel like a descendant of Charles Mingus, like a direct descendant.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES MINGUS' "HAITIAN FIGHT SONG")

HALL: If I had to describe what his playing is like, it's like a dragon or a lion or the kraken. It's like this wild mythological⁴ beast.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES MINGUS' "HAITIAN FIGHT SONG")

HALL: He's just somebody that sees the music on a pan-dimensional level. So they always pin Charles Mingus as the angry man of jazz. But to me, this is somebody that felt every single emotion there is to feel as an artist and translated that through music.

MART?NEZ: Mingus was full of contradictions. The same man who once punched his trombonist in the mouth also wrote a manual for toilet training a housecat. He called it a CAT-alog.

INSKEEP: A 1968 documentary reveals how, when threatened with eviction⁵, he picked up a gun and shot a hole in his own ceiling.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHARLES MINGUS: Well, I'm going to shoot it.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOT)

C MINGUS: A gun.

INSKEEP: But his widow, Sue Mingus, told Fresh Air in 2002 there was more to Mingus than his angry man of jazz persona.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

SUE MINGUS: He spent hours at the piano. It was where he found the center of his being. He was a very sensitive artist in a society that did not accept who he was, either as an artist or a musician or as a man with the skin color that wasn't approved. And he fought back.

MART?NEZ: Charles Mingus died of ALS in 1979. He was 56.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES MINGUS' "MODE D, MODE E, MODE F")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 volatile   

adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质

参考例句：

• With the markets being so volatile,investments are at great risk.由于市场那么变化不定，投资冒着很大的风险。
• His character was weak and volatile.他这个人意志薄弱，喜怒无常。

3 loom   

n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近

参考例句：

• The old woman was weaving on her loom.那位老太太正在织布机上织布。
• The shuttle flies back and forth on the loom.织布机上梭子来回飞动。

4 mythological   

adj.神话的

参考例句：

• He is remembered for his historical and mythological works. 他以其带有历史感和神话色彩的作品而著称。
• But even so, the cumulative process had for most Americans a deep, almost mythological significance. 不过即使如此，移民渐增的过程，对于大部分美国人，还是意味深长的，几乎有不可思议的影响。

5 eviction   

n.租地等的收回

参考例句：

• The family have won a temporary reprieve from eviction.这个家庭暂时免于被逐出。
• He claimed damages for unlawful eviction.他要求对非法驱逐作出赔偿。