The Naples Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra is joined by bassist Kevin Mauldin for an intimate tribute to one of the most important figures in 20th century jazz music, Charles Mingus. A virtuoso bass player, accomplished pianist, bandleader and composer, Mingus spent his early career playing with the leading musicians of the 40s and 50s, including Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. By the mid-50s, he had formed his own publishing and recording companies and would go on to become a leader of the burgeoning jazz avant-garde. During his lifetime, Mingus was honored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smithsonian Institution and Guggenheim Foundation, the head of which wrote following Mingus' passing in 1979, "I look forward to the day when we transcend labels like jazz and acknowledge Mingus as the major American composer that he is. For sheer melodic and rhythmic and structural originality, his compositions may equal anything written in western music in the twentieth century."