Gavin B.

Mingus was brilliant and in the same class as Monk as a jazz composer. Mingus was far more prolific than Monk and more of Mingus' music is hit and miss because Mingus's ideas about composition were so complex, he had problems getting his players to play the music the manner he wanted them to play.

I think more of Monk's songs have become real book jazz standards than Mingus because they're improv friendly. For non-jazz musicians: the real book is a thick book (usually xeroxed) of pirated sheet music and arrangements of jazz standards that is sold hand to hand, usually by jazz musicians. Some music stores sell the real book under the counter.

The real book is a kind of Bible for every jouneyman jazz musician and the arrangements are frequently used a musical platform in jam sessions.

A lot of Mingus' arrangements and themes were too tight to improvise around but Monk's themes were so elegant, simple and easy to do variations on.

It all depends on the type of jazz you like. Mingus wrote for big band type ensembles and was known to thrown tantrums if his players got adventurous with his arrangements. That sort of jazz is really comparable to classical music and Mingus was the equal of Debussy or Stravinsky at that kind of music composition.

On the other hand, Monk wrote for solo piano, quartets and quintets and gave the musicians quite a lot of musical space to jam. In that sense Monk was firmly rooted in improvisational jazz of bop. Each man was a different side of the same musical coin.

I never heard Monk play any of his songs the same way twice but he never fail to play them well, and seldom had an off night as a stage performer. Mingus was more of a temperamental perfectionist who was known to walk off the stage or even punch his sidemen if the sound wasn't exactly right.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt