First off: he didn’t.
I want to be very clear about that, because the rumour still circulates around certain Spanish jazz circles like a persistent, drunk mosquito.
But almost is sometimes more interesting than did.
Here’s the story, as best as I’ve pieced it together over years of half-remembered anecdotes, disputed bar chat, and one extremely battered cassette tape.
Back in 1972, Charles Mingus — by then, as volcanic and unpredictable as ever — was scheduled for a European tour. He’d done Paris, Copenhagen, Montreux. Somewhere in the planning stages, someone floated the idea of a few Spanish dates. Not Madrid, not Barcelona — but Málaga.
Now why Málaga? That’s the question that has perplexed me for years. Some say it was because of Mingus’ fascination with Spanish music — the same spark that led to Sketches of Spain (though that was Miles, of course). Others say it was simply a promoter with delusions of grandeur and very little understanding of what it meant to tour Mingus.
The plan was loose. Very loose. A seaside open-air concert. August. Right in the teeth of the Andalusian heat, with the audience sipping tinto de verano and the occasional seagull adding unintended percussion.
According to one promoter’s son — who I met by sheer accident at a record fair in Jerez — Mingus’ manager pulled the plug at the last minute after seeing the stage setup. Something about “structural integrity.” There may have also been an issue with the promised hotel being, shall we say, less than five stars. Mingus was famously particular.
So Mingus never played Málaga.
But for a few brief weeks, local musicians prepared as if he would. Pianists practiced his knotty heads. Bassists wept quietly into their strings. Drummers tried to figure out how to approach Fables of Faubus without having their arms fall off.
And somewhere in the back room of a bar in Torremolinos, a trumpet player named Paco Morales recorded himself rehearsing Goodbye Pork Pie Hat in case Mingus needed someone local to sit in.
That battered cassette? I own it. Bought for 5 euros, buried beneath Julio Iglesias tapes at a flea market. It’s rough. Out of tune. The time drifts. But the heart is undeniable. Paco was ready. Spain was ready. Mingus… wasn’t.
Sometimes, I sit out on my little terrace here in Cádiz, plug in that old tape, and imagine what could have been.
Mingus in Málaga. Now there’s a lost chapter.
