The Unfinished Score

"Like Mingus’ music itself I decided to call my book: The Unfinished Score—The Complete Works of Charles Mingus. It was and still is nothing like any other books that have ever been written and published about Mingus—or for that matter any other musician, jazz or otherwise. Quite simply, what I have done is capture the many moods of Mingus’ tumultuous life almost exclusively from his music, and relocate this to the poetic landscape. So, in a sense, mine is the only book about the musician that starts and ends with Mingus’ music: its melodies and harmonies, complex tones and textures, abrupt changes in mood and tempi and, most of all, his insecurities, fears and his enormous appetite for loving. The entire book is written in poetry and prose. The poems have been interspersed with prose chapters that lyrically introduce key episodes in his life that influenced his music. It was a challenge, to say the least. The book took me 15 years to research; it also took me 4 years to complete. But, by the end of my excursion into his sonic landscape, I came to know Mingus more intimately. He was one of a kind—an American who actually rose above the discrimination that he suffered AND that did the thesis of my book!" - Raul da Gama