Mingus/Mingus: Two Memoirs (Limelight)

A double-barreled memoir from two writers who were befriended by Charles Mingus during the late 1950s. Both Coleman and Young revered the composer, who (in Coleman's words) "viewed music as an elixir, an antidote to the poison, [and] a religious calling." But they're not too reverent to overlook Mingus's eccentricities, which included hitting the streets of New York with a bow, a quiver, and a suitcase full of extra arrows. This is a funny, touching, and instructive book.