Jazz is essentially an art of performance in which the composer has to create a framework involving the improvising soloist. In this series of seven programmes Charles Fox examines haw the role of the jazz composer has developed from the 1920s until the present day, and he shows how individual composers have tackled the problem. 5: Charles Mingus
During the 1950s he devised compositions which, in performance, paradoxically gave him maximum control and yet allowed his soloists great freedom. He also made extensive use of the black musical tradition.