Episode Details

Charles Mingus composed jazz that sounded like a symphony orchestra arguing. He fought club owners with his fists, fired musicians mid-set, and once chased a trombonist offstage with a fire axe. He also wrote a deadpan guide to toilet-training his cat.

This episode explores the volcanic genius who bridged Ellington and the avant-garde, whose workshop bands produced some of the most complex and emotionally raw recordings in jazz history.

• Mingus Ah Um is considered one of the greatest jazz albums ever recorded
• He was physically evicted from his New York apartment, and the event was filmed as a documentary
• His autobiography mixed fact and fiction so freely that scholars still debate which is which
• He published a serious instructional essay on training cats to use a human toilet