When the great upright bassist Charles Mingus died in 1979 at the age of 56, he had packed more into that relatively brief lifespan than any of us will, even if we live to 100. Mingus would have been a centenarian himself if he’d made it to 2022, the perfect opportunity for us to reassess his life and work. A complicated genius whose towering creativity was only matched by his skill on his instrument and the extremes of his character, Mingus was unique, in the world of bass as in any other. We may never fully understand his mission, but we certainly benefit from his otherworldly music.
Our primary objective at BP is to celebrate all aspects of our community, so in this issue we meet a whole range of bassists, from heavy metal titans via funk veterans to rockers of all stripes. Jenny Lee, Joshua Crumbly, Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, John Myung, Frankie Poullain, Stu Hamm and Robert Trujillo all feature in the value-packed magazine you’re reading, and that’s before we even meet our team of world-class bass educators, advisers and gear testers.
