Northwest Film Forum

This frank, tender and at times shocking cinéma verité portrait of the legendary jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus reveals the volatile dimensions of this protean creator in a particularly difficult period. On the eve of eviction from his Bowery loft, the hulking but gentle Mingus moves back and forth through physical and emotional clutter, speaking candidly with Reichman on topics ranging from music to sex to racism, interacting tenderly with his 5–year old daughter Carolyn, plunking on the piano and even hoisting a rifle. The film cuts intermittently between Mingus as defiant and depressed, and performance footage in which Mingus as bandleader is, as jazz critic Nat Hentoff has put it, “like Zeus hurling thunderbolts.” The feature will be preceded by rarely screened Mingus performance footage.