by Hamlet Pericles

Created on: October 31, 2008

The state of Arizona, the 48th state to join the United States of America on Wednesday, February 14, 1912, has produced many public figures. This article will feature three famous people from Arizona, along with a brief biography.

The first famous Arizonan that will be profiled is CHARLES MINGUS, born on April 22, 1922 in a US Army Base in Nogales, Arizona but raised in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California. Mingus was a jazz bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and activist against racism.

Mingus is considered one of the best jazz composers and performers that ever lived. Jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie once compared Mingus to a younger version of Duke Ellington, one of the most influential and celebrated jazz musicians of all time. In fact, in the early 1950s, Mingus was a member of Ellington's band for a short period of time but got dismissed due to his anger problems. Mingus was notorious for his temper; thus, he was named "The Angry Man of Jazz."

Mingus worked with the likes of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Max Roach, Jaki Byard, Pepper Adams, Booker Ervin, Jimmy Knepper, Charles McPherson, Horace Parlan, and many others. Mingus also toured with Louis Armstrong in 1943.

During his lifetime, Mingus recorded more than one hundred albums and wrote more than three hundred scores. A few of his celebrated albums include Mingus at the Bohemia (1955), The Charles Mingus Quintet & Max Roach (1955), Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956), The Clown (1957), Mingus Ah Um (1959), Mingus Dynasty (1959), The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963), Let My Children Hear Music (1972), and Changes One (1974).

On January 5, 1979, at the age of 56, Mingus died in Cuernavaca, Mexico due to Lou Gehrig's disease. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River in India.

For Mingus's work, he has been awarded many great honors; a few are as follows: In 1971, he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship; the same year, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1982, he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1993, the Library of Congress acquired the Charles Mingus Collection; two years later, a stamp by the United States Postal Service was issued in his honor. In 1999, his 1959 album Mingus Dynasty was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2005, he was inducted into the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

The second famous Arizonan that will be profiled is JAYNE CORTEZ, born in 1936 in Fort Huachuca, Arizona but grew up in Los Angeles,

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