"Epitaph" is one of jazz's greatest indulgences, a wildly diverse, multi-part, partly-open-ended suite for double big band that its creator Charles Mingus once called a symphony. It's rarely done -- ...

It’s big, brawny, raucous, tuneful, thorny, ambitious and — according to musicians who have attempted it — brutally difficult to play. Yet Charles Mingus’ epic orchestral score, “Epitaph,” ranks among ...

Charles Mingus' place in jazz history was secured well before his death at fifty-six in 1979. He had made his mark as one of the music's great bassists, most uncompromising bandleaders and original ...

In 1989, 10 years after his death, jazz giant Charles Mingus’ Epitaph was completed by friends, family, and historians. Tonight, the Charles Mingus Epitaph Orchestra performs the two-hour masterpiece ...

EPITAPH. The end, the summing up, the conclusion. The last few words to describe a lifetime. But “last few words” is not a phrase that can begin to describe Charles Mingus’ enormous composition, ...

Though Charles Mingus long has been revered as a fearlessly iconoclastic musician, listeners cannot take his full measure until they’ve heard his “Epitaph.” A monumental orchestral score that embraces ...

"Epitaph" is one of jazz's greatest indulgences, a wildly diverse, multi-part, partly-open-ended suite for double big band that its creator Charles Mingus once called a symphony. It's rarely done -- ...

Charles Mingus had been dead and buried for more than a decade by the time his jazz concerto, Epitaph, had its public debut on June 3, 1989 in New York City. But then again, the bassist/composer never ...