by Nat Hentoff The bass player was big. That night, a pianist new to the band said between sets, “ Getting on stand, I brushed against his arm. Man, it’s like a tree trunk.” Mingus, before there was a note of music, was also imposing because of his reputation. A flayer of audiences, it was said. Like the time at the Vanguard when he was trying out something new and much of the audience turned off, preferring the febrile chord changes of their own conversations. Mingus had stopped the music and, looming over the room, said, “ If you think this is weird, just take a look at yourselves.” Actually, Mingus most often liked to talk to, rather than at, those who had come to hear him. Whatever was on his mind had to be laid out. Something racist in the news. A new dumb pronouncement by some critic. Or something he suddenly decided ought to be said about the music. That night, Fats Navarro and Bird came into his head. “ They were talking when they played,” Mingus looked into the room. “ They were telling stories about their lives. And that’s what we do. You see, we represent a long line of facts. ’ ’ In elementary school, there was a teacher whose way of getting Mingus’s attention was to shout, “ Come i here, you yellow nigger.” The other teachers simply thought he was dumb. They could tell just by looking at him. And indeed, he was not learning much. It was decided to send the child to a dumb school, as he later described it. Mingus’ s father, light-skinned and scornful of the intelligence of most whites, came to instruct the principal. Perhaps, the principal then decided, he ought to look at the boy’s IQ scores before banishing young Mingus. At home, the father told his son the results. 22
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