Jazz Workshop, Inc

Jazz Workshop, Inc. is a company founded by Charles Mingus and continued by his wife, Sue Mingus. He started it as a music publishing company to give him and other artists control over their own music, continuing in the footsteps of Debut Records, which he co-founded with Max Roach. He retained publishing rights to his own compositions (which traditionally the labels controlled) and also released albums to fans through direct mail. After Mingus's death in 1979, Sue Mingus continued the mission to get Mingus Music played and artists paid, and three repertory bands came to life: the original Mingus Dynasty quintet and septets; the Grammy-winning Mingus Big Band, which has held a weekly residency in NYC for almost three decades, and the Mingus Orchestra, which features more unusual instrumentation such as bassoon, bass clarinet, guitar, and French horn. Jazz Workshop manages the critically-acclaimed touring and recording of these bands and ushered in the Mingus Centennial with special concerts at Birdland, Django, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, productions of Epitaph, a PBS broadcast of the Mingus Big Band from Kennedy Center, and an upcoming album The Mingus Centennial Sessions to be released in 2022. Jazz Workshop carries on that vision by publishing new scores and arrangements of Mingus music and supports the educational non-profit Let My Children Hear Music, Inc, a 501(c)(3) which produces the Mingus High School Festival, and more. Since Sue Mingus' retirement, Robert Ungaro is President of Jazz Workshop, Inc.