The Mingus Dynasty

The University at Buffalo Department of Music is proud to present the Mingus Dynasty Septet in concert on Friday, November 1^st, 2024 at 7:30pm in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on UB’s Amherst Campus.  The Mingus Dynasty Septet performs exclusively the music of composer/bassist Charles Mingus, who taught at UB in 1971 and celebrated his Centennial year in 2022.

The performance will be preceded by a 7:30pm talk moderated by Jeff Miers, and including Sabu Adeyola, UB faculty member and protégé to the late jazz master Charles Mingus.

Mingus Dynasty was the first band that his widow, Sue Mingus, organized after Charles Mingus’ death in 1979, collaborating with his own sidemen to honor his life and work. Although Mingus was an iconic and trailblazing bassist, he always said he was first and foremost a composer.  He left behind over 300 compositions that deserved to be played, so a band carrying on his music became a natural, if unanticipated, mission. Today, four decades later, the powerful legacy of Mingus Music ignites bandstands while new generations of musicians add their individual voices and continue to celebrate and explore this rich and varied musical legacy.