Charles Mingus wrote a detailed 1954 mail-order manual for teaching a cat to use a toilet, and he was also the virtuoso bassist and composer known as "the angry man of jazz." Born in 1922 in Nogales, Arizona, and raised in Watts with a mixed Black, white, and Chinese heritage, he grew up in a strict household that allowed only Holiness Pentecostal church music, secretly absorbed Duke Ellington on the radio, and studied cello before racism in classical orchestras pushed him to the double bass.

This deep dive covers his early work with Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton, walking out on the Red Norvo trio over racist club owners, the backstage fire-axe confrontation with Juan Tizol that got him fired by Ellington, co-founding Debut Records with Max Roach, and the 1953 Massey Hall concert. It explores the Jazz Workshop "sweatshops," Pithecanthr ...