Multi-instrumentalist, composer, vocalist and poet Eric Mingus has been steeped in the jazz tradition since birth, and uses this foundation to create his own musical worlds which stand outside of the genre, while being informed by it. Son of jazz immortal Charles Mingus and his wife Judy, as a child Eric played underneath the piano while his father improvised and composed; he accompanied his father to innumerable rehearsals and performances, studied cello and music theory with his father, and drums with Dannie Richmond. Like his father, Eric exchanged the cello for the double bass in his teens, and he studied voice throughout his school years, winning awards for his performances. 

After studying voice and bass with luminaries of the jazz world, and a brief semester at Berklee college of music, Eric toured as a vocalist with Carla Bley, Bobby McFerrin and Karen Mantler. He played with Percy Heath, Jimmy Heath, George Adams and Don Pullen, along with Wolfgang Puschnig, Steven Bernstein and his Millennial Territory Orchestra, David Amram, and many others. Jazz Festival performances include Saalfelden (AT), Orvieto Winter Jazz and Ah Um Festival (IT), Jazz a la Villette, Rhino Jazz and Banlieues Bleues (FR), the Berlin Jazz Festival (DE), Montreal Jazz Festival (CA), the Adelaide Festival of the Arts (AUS), Bonnaroo Festival TN, Wall to Wall at Symphony Space NYC, and Celebrate Brooklyn. Eric performed the first part of an in-progress work, based on the history of his family, with Yo-Yo Ma in May 2023. The performance took place in the burial ground of Eric’s enslaved ancestors, at the Mingus Mill in North Carolina.

Commissions include poems for performance for the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1964 speech for the Berlin Jazz Festival, a musical work for Yo Yo Ma’s cultural initiative, Our Common Nature, and a recorded piece for the Centre Culture Irlandais in Paris for a sound installation. Eric was awarded a residency at Looking Glass Arts in summer 2022.

Eric formed a jazz/poetry duo with visionary tubist and saxophonist Howard Johnson; this work has continued with various collaborators, including a notable recording of Langston Hughes’ poetry, with pianist David Amram, (Mode/Avant). Eric has worked selectively with his father’s music, singing on the Mingus Dynasty album Blues and Politics, and more recently writing lyrics for his vocal performance on Work Song with the Mingus Big Band on The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions. 

Eric is a judge and educator at the annual Charles Mingus High School competition, has lectured at Berklee, Harvard, UC Irvine, the Banlieues Blues Jazz festival (Paris, France) and the In Situ Arts Society (Bonn, Germany). He taught vocal improvisation classes and a Charles Mingus workshop at London’s Community Music House.