The Rutgers Jazz Ensemble and the Jazz Faculty Septet are set to honor legendary jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. The concert, A Tribute to Charles Mingus, will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 28 at Nicholas Music Center.
Jazz program chair and longtime Mingus Big Band member Conrad Herwig directs the event, which will also feature an appearance by Mingus’ widow, Sue Mingus. Ms. Mingus will receive a lifetime achievement award from the New Jersey Jazz Society at the concert, which honors Mingus’ 90th birthday.
Selections will include the jazz standard "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," "The Children’s Hour" from Mingus’ epic jazz symphony Epitaph and the experimental Pithecanthropus Erectus. Herwig says he also plans to feature the politically charged Fables of Faubus, a protest song directed at then-Gov. Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas, who called out the National Guard to prevent the racial integration of Little Rock Central High School.
